Essential West Magazine
- Featured Artists
- Event Calendar
- Artist Biographies
- News & Press
- Educational Videos
- Podcast
- Essential West
- Learn
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
Grizzly 399 Monument Unveiled at National Museum of Wildlife Art
Grizzly 399 was born in 1996. She successfully birthed 18 cubs in her lifetime including a rare four-cub litter during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her last cub was born when Grizzly 399 was 24, a record birthing age for the species. She represented more than numbers. Often seen with her cubs near roadsides across Grand Teton National Park and...
Eiteljorg Museum hosting 30th annual Indian Market amid major changes inside the museum
Indian Market and Festival artist Alexa Rae Day, Anishinaabe Hochunk Lakota, shows her work to a market visitor in 2019 | Courtesy of the Artist The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis celebrates a pair of milestones this month. On June 25 and 26, the 30th annual Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival takes place, returning as an in-person event for the first time since 2019. Simultaneously, the museum debuts newly redesigned Native American Galleries following a $6 million overhaul six years in the making. The combination of events has no peer across the Midwest...
Three Asphalt Art Initiative projects being completed across the West this summer
Asphalt Art Initiative, Kansas City. Artwork by Tehya Riley, Parker Story, Alex Eickhoff, Stephanie Bloss-Foley | Photo courtesy of Bloomberg Philanthropies Street art’s ability to draw residents out of their homes to engage with neighbors, improve civic pride, bolster local businesses and enliven the places where it’s found are self-evident. From St. Petersburg, FL to Denver, public art has been used as a catalyst to revitalize urban areas. Outdoor art projects, installations, murals and the like are inexpensive and effective community energizing tools. Counterintuitive, however, is a public safety benefit of street art: decreased traffic accidents. That doesn’t...
Denver Art Museum positions Raymond Jonson as an essential Western painter
Raymond Jonson, Pueblo Series, Acoma, 1927. Denver Art Museum | Photo Courtesy Chadd Scott Standing in front of Raymond Jonson’s Pueblo Series, Acoma (1927; oil on canvas. 36 1/2 x 43 1/2 inches) at the Denver Art Museum, I experienced a visual Déjà vu. Where had I seen this before? On my last visit, the permanent collection was off view as the building housing those works was undergoing a massive renovation. I was certain I’d never seen this picture before. While Raymond Jonson is not a totally obscure artist, he’s hardly a household name of the sort whose...
Must-see events this summer for fans of Western art
If you had all the money in the world and no other responsibilities, how would you spend your summer? Here’s what I’d do – each weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site | Credit Tira Howard May 28 – Bosque Redondo Memorial (Ft. Sumner, NM) The grand opening commemoration event for the permanent interpretive exhibition “Bosque Redondo: A Place of Suffering…A Place of Survival” will feature a full day of events. Enjoy welcome speeches, music and cultural dance performances from Navajo (Diné) and Mescalero Apache (Ndé) community...
“Apsáalooke Women and Warriors” exhibition opens at the Museum of the Rockies
Wherein Lies the Beauty of Life by Ben Pease | Photo Courtesy Field Museum, Chicago Visitors to the “Apsáalooke Women and Warriors” exhibition at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT will find sacred war shields, horse regalia, a 9-foot-tall modern tipi reproduction, and more than 20 works of contemporary art including paintings, photographs, beadwork and fashion. They may also find something even more meaningful: a new way of looking at the world. “There are people in this country, I think young people particularly, who do not identify with Christianity, it doesn't answer all the questions that they...
'A Place of Suffering... A Place of Survival;' new exhibition open at Bosque Redondo Memorial
The building and grounds of Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site, captured at sunset | Credit Tira Howard The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site makes an odd place for a celebration. On this land, between 1863 and 1868, U.S. government soldiers forced the relocation of nearly 10,000 Diné (Navajo) and roughly 500 Ndé (Mescalero Apache) peoples from their homelands in present-day Arizona to this isolated, inhospitable expanse in eastern New Mexico. The fort served as the center of a million-acre parcel known as the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation. The Long Walk, as the...
A premier collection of Indigenous art to see - and touch! - at the Coe Center
Indigenous artwork from around the world | Photo: Chadd Scott Most of what visitors to the Coe Center in Santa Fe see on display there they will have seen before. Indigenous baskets, pottery, sculpture. Totems, beadwork, carvings. Mind you, the items collected by the Center’s namesake, Ted Coe, are among the finest examples anywhere, still, they will be familiar to those who regularly frequent museums and galleries across the West. The relationship the Coe Center allows guests to have with those objects, however, is what makes this a unique experience to be treasured. The Coe Center invites visitors...
Contemporary Native American artists Nani Chacon and Jeffrey Gibson in spotlight at SITE Santa Fe
Nani Chacon (Diné), Asdzáá Na’ashjé íí (2022). Acrylic on Polytab; installation at SITE Santa Fe | Photo: Chadd Scott “Indigenous Celebration New Mexico 2022” signifies a year’s long coming together of the state’s cultural institutions – Indigenous and otherwise – recognizing and promoting a historic confluence of significant anniversaries occurring across the Native American arts community around the state. The commemoration seeks to establish New Mexico internationally as the world’s most notable destination to experience Native American culture and the most recognized location to learn about, view and purchase Indigenous Art. At SITE Santa Fe, a cutting-edge exhibition...
10 Must-See Paintings at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe
La Fonda Hotel Postcard c.1940 Check-in isn’t required to enjoy the spectacular art collection at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. The historic property on the Plaza celebrates it’s 100th anniversary this year and offers free docent tours Wednesdays through Saturdays at 10:30 AM. The one-hour excursions throughout the hotel detail its creation with an emphasis on the 1200-plus-object, $3 million dollar art collection. Native American artwork – particularly contemporary Native American artwork – constitutes the majority of what is on display, with primo examples from many of the genre’s top practitioners. While I strongly recommend taking the...
Julia Arriola debuts new series of ledger drawings focusing on pow wows and fairs
The Ledger Drawings of Julia Arriola Walking into an antique shop in Fredricksburg, TX, Tucson native Julia Arriola (b. 1952; Mescalero/Mayo) didn’t expect to walk out as a ledger artist. She didn’t. That would come later, following her 20-year career as a curator at the Arizona Historical Society. What she did walk out of that shop with, however, was an 1869 ledger book dug out of a storage room and acquired for $10 which would ultimately send her down the path of ledger drawing. Names and numbers. Things bought and sold. Mostly by men although a few by...