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
Historic "Grounded in Clay" Pueblo Pottery Exhibition Wraps Up Nationwide Tour in Albuquerque
“Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery” debuted in July of 2022 at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe. Over the preceding four years, the stunning exhibition traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Saint Louis Art Museum. The nation’s most elite...
Sun Valley, ID: Home away from home for Dale Chihuly and Leslie Jackson Chihuly
Guy Oliver, Final Star Trail. Courtesy of the artist and Visit Sun Valley Like millions of others, Leslie Jackson Chihuly fell in love with one of the West’s mountain resort towns. Sun Valley, Idaho. Occasional visits became more frequent. Winter ski vacations were added to summer business trips. Family holidays migrated there. Unlike millions of others, Leslie is married to one of America’s most famous artists, glass artist Dale Chihuly. Also unlike most, Leslie Jackson Chihuly has evolved her love for visiting Sun Valley into an active role there helping bring more art and culture to the rural...
A new exhibition for Ruby City, and new insights into founder Linda Pace
Nathan Carter 'Dear Linda Pace', 2007, Enamel paint on wood panel with Plexiglass face, 14 x 17 x 1 | Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas - Gift of Nathan Carter | © Nathan Carter When Ruby City opened in October of 2019, the museum presented an introduction to long time San Antonio artist, collector and benefactor Linda Pace through both the contemporary art she acquired and that which she created. Ruby City is Linda Pace. It always will be. It matters not that she only ever saw it in her mind. Pace succumbed to...
Sending a new message about Native American art and Native American people
Joseph Mozier, America (1850), marble, with John Nieto painting in the background at MFA St. Petersburg | Photo by Chadd Scott Jarring. No other word better describes my reaction upon seeing John Nieto’s (Mescalero Apache; 1936-2018) Not Necessarily the End of the Trail (After Fraser) (1991) at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg (Florida). I’d even seen an image of the giant painting hung among the museum’s American galleries on social media before visiting and finding it in person was still jarring. Any piece of contemporary Native American art displayed in a mainstream art museum is rare....
Visit sculptor LaQuincey Reed during his residency at Skirvin Hotel OKC
LaQuincey Reed with his sculptures | Photo by Ragan Butler Sculptor LaQuincey Reed gives art lovers a pair of treats this fall. One, the rare opportunity to see an artist at work in his studio. Two, a chance at getting in on the ground floor with an artist bound for greatness, to one day brag about “discovering” Reed on the upswing. Since February, Reed (b. 1983) has set up shop inside the Skirvin Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City as part of its annual artist-in-residency program, moving his sculpting studio to the street level of the historic property. Passersby...
Julia Arriola partners with Medicine Man Gallery to support MMIW
Julia Arriola - White Flame (Diptych) Indigenous women and girls in the United States are 10-times more likely to be murdered than those of all other ethnicities. Murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women in the U.S. For white women, it’s not in the top 10. More than 80% of Indigenous women have experienced violence. The National Crime Information Center in 2016 logged 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls; the U.S. Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database, NamUs, reported only 116 cases. All the statistics in the...
Julian Brave NoiseCat honored for journalism and writing on Indigenous topics
Julian Brave NoiseCat | Photo Credit Emily Kassie Since he was 5-years-old, the work Julian Brave NoiseCat undertakes today seems what he’s always been destined for. Sharing the stories of Indigenous people across North America. Advocating for Native communities. Promoting “the belief that Indigenous peoples can contribute to understanding and addressing the world's most pressing challenges,” through journalism, activism and policy. At 28, he may be the foremost Indigenous voice in America speaking to the issues that matter across Indian Country. NoiseCat, a member of Canim Lake Band Tsq'escen and a descendant of the Lil'Wat Nation of Mount...
A look inside the School for Advanced Research's astonishing pottery vault in Santa Fe
School for Advanced Research pottery vault | Photo by Chadd Scott You’ll feel it walking through the vault doors into the pottery collection at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. The sacred. A solemn wave engulfing the body. It’s physical. The emotional response almost overwhelming. This may be the most spiritual art space in the world. Gathered here are thousands of Indigenous pots from across the Southwest. Pre-contact through contemporary. Some too large to wrap your arms around. Others would fit in the palm of your hand. Gathered with them are stories. Voices. Listen close and...
Serendipity adds depth, quality to Cowboy Museum 'Art of Northwest Coast' exhibition
Mark Henderson (Kwakwaka’wakw) - Eagle and Sisiuti, 1984, serigraph. Arthur and Shifra Silberman Collection| Courtesy National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum Eric Singleton must have been living right. In the midst of preparing an exhibition highlighting art of the Northwest Coast, the Curator of Ethnology at The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City received a phone call out of the blue that would change the exhibition, and the museum. “A gentleman by the name of Nathan Walker, who's a biology professor at Oklahoma State University, said, ‘would you guys be interested in a donation; my...
Visiting Indian Market for the first time? Here are our tips
Sunday crowd at SWAIA Indian Market 2022| Photo by Chadd Scott One hundred years of Indian Market in Santa Fe and my first. I was invited by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts to attend its annual gathering in 2022, the centennial celebration of the largest, oldest and most prestigious Indigenous arts market in the world. Among the tens of thousands attending the event, countless have been doing so for decades. Much like the artists themselves, they’ve made Indian Market an annual tradition. I hope to. Until I become an old salt at Market, and with the hope...
History of Native American Modern art traces roots back to Institute of American Indian Art
George Morrison, (Chippewa) - White Painting #1, 1965, oil, 50.5 x 50.5 | Courtesy IAIA Native Americans were producing Modern art prior to the Institute of American Indian Art opening in 1962. Leon Polk Smith (Cherokee) and George Morrison (Chippewa) were both living, working and exhibiting alongside the Abstract Expressionists in New York in the 1940s. Examples, however, are few and far between. IAIA represented the Big Bang of Native Modern art. The first generation of students and instructors through the 1960s and 70s departed from traditional aesthetics to boldly experiment with new themes. They challenged stereotypical expectations...