Essential West Magazine
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Learn about the latest Medicine Man Gallery happenings; all about our artist, see our educational videos about native American art and fine art, watch podcasts with your favorite artists and check out art and history-related links we think you'll enjoy.
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
Artist Hopid at Museum of Northern Arizona
The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff highlights a lesser-known chapter in Native American art history central to its region: Artist Hopid. An exhibition series on view through April 30, 2027, features work from the groundbreaking collective formed in 1973 by celebrated Hopi artists Michael Kabotie, Delbridge Honanie, Terrance Talaswaima, Neil David Sr. and Milland Lomakema. Artist Hopid...
Dale Chihuly's Public and Private Spaces
Dale Chihuly’s Seattle “Boathouse” glass blowing hot shop and former home isn’t open to the public. Shame. The building’s industrial, utilitarian exterior belies the wonderland inside. In addition to housing Chihuly’s team’s workspace, it displays his numerous collections. Collections of his artwork. Collections of artwork from artists he admires. Collections of Edward Curtis photogravures – one of the largest. Of Northwest Coast Indigenous baskets – dozens. Of early 20th century trade blankets – hundreds. Art books, old radios, old cameras, record albums. Spectacularly arranged. The Northwest Room, The Boathouse, Seattle, 2026. Artwork by Dale Chihuly © Chihuly Studio. All rights...
Visiting the National Museum of the American Indian in New York
George Gustav Heye (1874-1957) made a killing on Wall Street before leaving finance as a young man to pursue an abiding passion for Indigenous art from the Americas – North, Central, and South. He began collecting in Arizona in 1897. His money allowed him to travel everywhere. To buy everything. His appetite for collecting was voracious. Not satisfied buying individual items, his collecting grew to include the acquisition of entire museum collections and the entire collections of other collectors. He’d buy hundreds and thousands of objects in one fell swoop. Indigenous artworks from the Southwest on view at National Museum...
Mimi Plumb: 50 Years Photographing the West
“Walnut Creek is a sunny, upscale and comfortable city at the base of Mt. Diablo, offering culture, shopping, sports and cuisine.” So says the city’s visitor and tourism website. The city of just over 70,000 residents 25 miles east of San Francisco considers itself “Calipolitan,” a made-up marketing slogan. It boasts of “120+ elevated dining experiences,” whatever that means. “Award-winning shopping.” Whatever that means. The average home price according to Zillow is $1,000,000, give or take, and that’s down almost 2% in the last year. This is not the Walnut Creek photographer Mimi Plumb (b. 1953) grew up in. “It...
60 Years of Gemini G.E.L. Prints in Los Angeles
The biggest names in late 20th and early 21st century art have come through the doors at Gemini G.E.L.’s Los Angeles printmaking workshop. Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper John’s, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney to scratch the surface. John Baldessari, Philip Guston, Julie Mehretu, Bruce Nauman, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Richard Serra. Those type folks. Since its founding in 1966, Gemini G.E.L. has been a place where artists are given the freedom to test and explore new ideas, materials, and scale, expanding the possibilities of printmaking with each generation. “They never limit the artist's imagination...
Arshile Gorky's Western Road Trip
“Three artists piled into a Ford station wagon...” I receive dozens of press releases daily for art exhibitions, museum openings, gallery shows, and cultural events around the world. This tease immediately captured my interest. Who were the artists? Where were they going? When was this? The answers proved even more delicious than the headline. In the summer of 1941, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), his soon-to-be wife Agnes ‘Mougouch’ Magruder (1921-2013), and Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) packed into Noguchi’s brand-new Ford station wagon and set out for Los Angeles from New York City. Their two-week road trip marked Gorky’s first visit to the American...
Loveland, CO: Sculpture City, USA
With all due respect to the great Western wildlife painters from Carl Rungius to John Potter, animals in sculpture hit different than their two-dimensional counterparts. I don’t feel the same about figurative painting vs. sculpture, but seeing animals embodied in three dimensions in stone or bronze or glass gives a sense of their stature flat depictions simply can’t. For quality and quantity of wildlife sculpture, two destinations stand out: the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY and the Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, CO. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is a straightforward art museum with a focus,...
When Ansel Adams Photographed Los Angeles
In the winter of 1940 and ‘41 Ansel Adams received an assignment from “Fortune” magazine to photograph Los Angeles, specifically workers in the city’s booming aviation industry. Military aviation. Giants of weapons manufacturing like Douglas, Lockheed, and Northrop. Ansel Adams, 'Lockheed Plant in Burbank From Afar,' view3. Courtesy Los Angeles County Public Library. Adams didn’t much care for the job or the finished product. His autobiography mentions how miserable the conditions were during the three or four weeks he was there and how the constant drizzle robbed him of the tonality and color and light he was used to working...
Darren Pearson' Light Painting Photographs of Nevada
When Travel Nevada reached out to Darren Pearson about the possibility of him road tripping through the state, he jumped at the chance. Officials at the state’s tourism office had become captivated by Pearson’s light painting photographs and wanted him to use the Silver State as a fresh backdrop. Not Vegas. Sin City gets enough attention; Travel Nevada wants travelers to know there’s more to the state than its most prominent place. The results of Pearson’s excursion can be seen through April 6, 2026, at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas – hey, you can’t escape it all together. “I...
'Beyond Bison' at Missoula Art Museum
In 1908, the Federal Government created an 18,776-acre National Bison Range in western Montana between Kalispell to the north and Missoula to the south. It was established as an island of bison protection in a sea of slaughter. By that time, white settlers and market hunters had obliterated America’s bison population from perhaps 50 million at the turn of the 19th century to a low of a few hundred 80 years later. The Range was located in the middle of the Flathead Indian Reservation. Unceded land. The Tribes protested the additional incursion. Further theft of their land. The United States...
Lessons in Collecting from Dr. Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes (1872–1951) was one of this country’s greatest art collectors. Dr. Albert Barnes. He made his fortune co-inventing antiseptic. Anyone with tons of money can collect art. Separating the mere shoppers from the memorable collectors are vision, commitment, legwork, confidence – among other characteristics. Fortunately, none of those skills require a private jet. They are skills we can all hone. Barnes didn’t simply buy spectacular art, although he did buy spectacular art. Between 1912 and 1951 he acquired one of the largest private holdings of oil paintings by Paul Cézanne in the world. Ditto Pierre Auguste Renoir. Sixty-one oil...