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Essential West Magazine
Exploring Art, Literature, History, Museums, Lifestyle, and Cultures of the West
It amazes me that four letters - W-E-S-T - have the ability to evoke an instantaneous emotional image. Simply the act of reading these four letters has caused you to form a narrative of your west.
Can the West be distilled to its essence - a simple direction or region? I believe not; it is a deeper dive of consciousness. How America sees itself and the world defines us. Diverse cultures, strong individualism, open spaces, and raw natural beauty marinated in a roughshod history have formed this region’s unique milieu.
Our online magazine’s primary focus is to feature relevant topics in art, literature, history, museums, lifestyle, and culture; lofty goals for any publication. No single magazine can be the beckon of all things western; it is a diverse, evolving paradigm that cannot be pigeonholed. As the publisher, I hope to be the buffalo that grazes the wide expanse of western sensibility and relay to you a glimpse of how I perceive our Essential West.
- Mark Sublette
Featured Article
T.C. Cannon, Bob Dylan, Allan Houser, and Henry Moore
The first week of 2025 brought me the discovery of two artistic inspirations I was previously unaware of featuring two of my favorite artists: T.C. Cannon (1946-1978; Kiowa/Caddo) and Allan Houser (1914-1994; Chiricahua Apache). Surprisingly, it was not Cannon and Houser – arguably the most influential Native American painter and, inarguably, the most prominent Native American sculptor, respectively...
Mateo Romero Taos Pueblo Series
For the second year in a row, I spent late December in northern New Mexico. The art, the cuisine, the people, the landscape, and the culture have become a necessary refuge from where I live in Florida. I’ve visited the state multiple times each year since 2022. I have two more trips back already planned for 2025. As an arts and travel writer with no kids and healthy parents, I’m travel constantly. Whenever anyone asks me where my favorite place is, and they ask me in Africa, Europe, and New York, I say New Mexico. Northern New Mexico specifically. I’ve...
An Argument Against the 'Pulp' West
Wherever I go, there’s David Yarrow. Santa Fe. David Yarrow. Cherry Creek, CO. David Yarrow. Even New York. David Yarrow. I first came across the contemporary photographer’s work at C. Anthony Gallery in Beaver Creek, CO looking for my favorite artist Earl Biss. The gallery represents them both. The gallerist on site was nearly levitating at the enormous – some five and six feet across – black-and-white Yarrow photographs recently received and their popularity with customers. Good commission days. The pictures were selling for several thousand dollars, well over $10,000 for the big, framed ones. Yarrow’s carefully choreographed, cinematic, narrative...
The Native Artists Dominating Museum Presentations in 2024
Artnet surveyed special exhibitions currently on view at more than 200 U.S. art museums producing a list of the contemporary artists most in fashion nationwide. At institutions, anyway. The rankings do not consider galleries or the secondary market. The highly respected art world publication found nearly 3,500 names appearing in solo and group shows at big and small museums from coast to coast, with just over 300 – less than 10% –appearing more than once. The individual artists appearing multiple times was, of course, even smaller. For the numerical ranking, career retrospectives and surveys were weighted mostly highly, “followed by...
Western Cities Again Tops in 2024 'Arts Vibrancy Index' Rankings
Southern Methodist University’s DataArts, the National Center for Arts Research, has released its annual ranking of the 40 most arts-vibrant communities in the United States. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City again topped the “Large Communities” (population over 1,000,000) category for 2024, repeating from a year ago. Western cities also claimed top spot in the “Medium Communities” (100,000-1,000,000) category with Santa Fe, and “Small Communities” (under 100,000) with Jackson, WY/ID, also a repeat winner from 2023. Santana Family mural in San Francisco's Mission District. First published in 2015, the Arts Vibrancy Index is composed of 13 unique measures covering aspects of supply,...
Laine Justice's Extraordinary Story from Kidnapping to Fine Art Success
Laine Justice’s dazzling Electric Forest (2024) painting leaps at viewers like a dog reunited with its owner after a week away – all licks, and tail wags, and running in circles. Fantastically vivid colors. Pinks and blues. Trees. Water. Maybe even a little dog’s face. An abstracted version of paradise. Joyful. Difficult imagining this cheery wonderland came from the mind of an artist kidnapped out of her bed by strangers in the middle of the night as a 14-year-old, drug down stairs, forced onto an airplane, flown across the county, and enrolled into a cult. A cult she’d spend her...
Who were the 'Indian Space Painters?'
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, New York’s Art Students League was the most important artistic training ground in the world. A who’s-who of preeminent American modernists occupied its classrooms. Norman Rockwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, and Mark Rothko. Helen Frankenthaler, George Bellows, Cy Twombly, Barnett Newman, and Romare Bearden. Instructors included Robert Henri, Thomas Hart Benton, and Jacob Lawrence. A partial list. Amazing. Since its founding in 1962 as a high school, Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts has been as influential to contemporary American art as the Art Students League was to American...
Hemingway, Churchill and the Trophy Fish of Catalina Island
“Fish on!” at the Catalina Museum for Art & History during “Capturing Memories: A Half Century of Fishing 1900-1950,” an exhibition of photographs highlighting Catalina Island’s emergence as “the birthplace of big game fishing.” That story begins in 1898 with Charles F. Holder, believed to be the first man to catch a tuna on rod and reel – and what a whopper it was, 183-pounds. He landed the fish off Santa Catalina Island, about 25 miles from the California mainland depending on point of departure. Holder would go on to found the Tuna Club of Avalon, so named for Catalina’s...
More Than Meets the Eye with Omaha's 'Pioneer Courage' Monument
Monuments matter. They are America’s most contentious artform. They are so because they are public, and broadcast values to the public. They speak for the cities erecting them, even if many of those citizens don’t agree. Monuments tell stories. They shape history. They’re propaganda. Monuments were essential to establishing the Lost Cause narrative across the South, transforming the Confederate side of the Civil War into a gallant struggle for state’s rights against a massive, federal oppressor. Monuments turned insurrectionist slave holders into plucky rebels fighting for their homes. Monuments across the South turned inhumanity into sympathy, nobility. Monuments matter. Monuments...
Roland Peterson's Vibrant California Colors
If Roland Peterson’s “Visual Feast” were an actual feast, it should come with a warning about tooth decay. Peterson paints with the juicy colors and gummy richness of gumdrops and licorice. Thick, sweet, gooey. Make your teeth hurt sweet. The Elverhøj Museum of History and Art in Slovang, CA serves up “Roland Petersen: The Visual Feast” through January 5, 2025, in what will be an introduction to the artist for most. Roland Peterson, 'Enjoying the View,' 2009. Courtesy Elverhøj Museum of History and Art. Petersen’s (b. 1926; Endelave, Denmark) family moved from Denmark to San Francisco in the late 1920s....