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
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...
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....
Ansel Adams and Chip Thomas: Western Photographers
One West, exalted. The West of canyons and rushing waterfalls and mountain peaks. The other West… what would be the best word to describe it? Erased? No, it remains, not that erasure wasn’t tried. Forgotten? Not to the people who continue calling it home and have for centuries. Overlooked? Too kind. How about abused? The abused West. The West of Indian reservations and mining. Both can be seen in Cincinnati of all places as part of the FotoFocus Biennial 2024, a statewide celebration of photography. The exalted West comes by way of Ansel Adams at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Everyone...
Norman Akers: Calling for Home
You may never find yourself in remote Manhattan, Kansas, 120 miles west of Kansas City. If you ever do, make sure to visit the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the charming campus of Kansas State University. Admission is free. Two paintings from the permanent collection would be worth paying good money to admire. The first is Birger Sandzén’s (1871–1954) gumdrop fantasy landscape, Still Water (1926). Sandzén is one of my favorite Western artists and I’ve only seen one painting of his superior to this. The second is Norman Akers’ (b. 1958; Wahzhazhi/Osage) Calling for Home (2023). An elk...
Wendy Red Star: Genius
Portland-based Apsáalooke/Crow visual artist Wendy Red Star (b. 1981) has been selected as a MacArthur Fellow for 2024. A MacArthur Fellowship – the so-called “genius grant” – comes with a stipend of $800,000 paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years. The monetary award is unrestricted meaning it can be spent however the honoree chooses. A MacArthur Fellowship represents arguably the highest achievement a creative can earn. It inarguably represents life-altering monetary support in pursuit of that creativity. The process for selecting MacArthur Fellows can be described as secretive. Nominees are brought to the program's attention through a constantly changing...
Nevada State Museum Commissions Gregg Deal to Complete Dat So La Lee Mural
Over the weekend of September 27 and 28, 2024, as part of the Carson City Murals and Music Festival, Gregg Deal completed a mural of Washo weaver Dat So La Lee (about 1829-1925) on the Nevada State Museum. Deal is a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and also has Washo ancestry. Western present-day Nevada in the area around Carson City, Reno, and Lake Tahoe, CA are the groups’ historic homelands. Deal, who lives in Colorado, was contacted by festival organizers to take on the project. He currently has three murals up in Denver and one in Colorado Springs....
Montana's Remote Glaciers Through the Drawings of Jonathan Marquis
Jonathan Marquis fell in love with Montana before even moving there in 2003 to finish college. It didn’t take long – backpacking and mountain climbing around the state – to know it was true love. “When I climbed one of my first peaks and had this incredible 100-mile view, something really clicked and I knew that this is the place I'm staying,” Marquis said. He was mostly an abstract painter then. He’d occasionally be inspired to sketch from his hikes, but initially rejected the landscape genre. “It took me many years to figure out how to be a landscape artist....
Wendy Red Star's 'The Soil You See' Takes Rightful Place at Tippet Rise
Wendy Red Star’s The Soil You See (2023) belongs here. On the traditional homeland of the Apsáalooke (Crow). Red Star (b. 1981) grew up on the tribe’s reservation roughly 50 miles east of here. This was all Apsáalooke (Crow) before the white man came. Hundreds of square miles in every direction. Now it’s called Montana. This particular 12,500 acres of Montana near tiny Fishtail, a 45-minute drive northwest from Red Lodge on State Route 78, hosts Tippet Rise, an outdoor sculpture park and summer classical music concert venue. The mighty Beartooth Mountains with the highest peaks in region backdrop The...
Art and Heartbreak in Taos, NM
There are heartbreaks. Teenage heartbreaks. First love heartbreaks. The kind of heartbreaks everyone should experience as essential to the human condition. The kind you get over. And then there are heartbreaks. Destroyers. Those that obliterate the soul. The kind you don’t always get over. I know both. On a recent visit to Taos, NM, I learned about a pair of the latter. Nicolai Fechin Nicolai Fechin (1881–1955) immigrated to the United States from Russia with his wife, Alexandra, and their daughter, Eya, in 1923. Like most eastern Europeans, their first stop was New York City. Fechin had a successful career...