Gallery Events And News
- 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.
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
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...
Benjamin Harjo Jr. and the Paradox of Success
Benjamin Harjo Jr’s success came at a cost to his legacy. What he made, people bought. All of it. All the time. Throughout a 50-plus year career. Art was more than a passion for him, it was a profession. How he fed his family. He faithfully attended Santa Fe Indian Market and Red Earth festival in Oklahoma City along with other select shows, cultivating a collector base that scarfed up his work. He paid his mortgage selling artworks, that was the point. Being so successful, he didn’t have to promote himself. He didn’t need a gallery to promote his work,...
Speed Art Museum in Louisville Presents Some of the Earliest Photos of the American West
They are among the earliest photographs of the West. Timothy O’Sullivan’s pictures of what would become Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Famous places: the Grand Canyon, Zuni Pueblo, Shoshone Falls, ID, Snake River, ID, Canyon de Chelly. O’Sullivan (born in Ireland, about 1840–1882) was part of an 1871 government-sponsored expedition lead by Lieutenant George Wheeler surveying and documenting the territories west of the 100th meridian, a longitudinal line running straight down the Great Plains from present day North Dakota to Texas. In his photographs, O’Sullivan created carefully constructed images conveying the ruggedness, vast scale, and the natural grandeur...
Redding, CA's Sundial Bridge Celebrates 20th Anniversary
Why was one of the world’s foremost architects – living in Switzerland at the time – interested in designing a bridge halfway across the world in unknown Redding, CA? That’s a good story. Located between Sacramento and the Oregon border on Interstate 5, Redding wanted a pedestrian bridge spanning the Sacramento River, linking Turtle Bay Museum to its arboretum and river trail. The city aspired to more than a basic concrete expanse the government was offering. A small citizens committee was formed to elicit bids on the project and pick a winner. After interviewing three architects, the group had reached...
Cannupa Hanksa Luger Brings Bison Sculpture to Manhattan
No symbol of the American West is more iconic than the buffalo. The bison to be scientific – Bison bison. The classic silhouette. Sun-bleached skull on the prairie. CM Russell’s signature. The Yellowstone buffalo. Buffalo tribes. Buffalo Bill. The bison stands as a keystone species across the West ecologically and symbolically. Culturally, too. Bison paintings and sculptures fill western art museums, galleries, and public spaces. Their representation is especially pronounced in Native American artwork from the Plains region where Indigenous people relied on the animal for food, clothing, shelter and tools. Buffalo, it has been said, were the grocery store...
Alexandre Hoge: America's First Environmental Activist Painter
I consider Alexandre Hogue America’s first environmental activist artist. Members of the 19th century Hudson River School painters commented on deforestation and increasing industrialization in New England, but not with Hogue’s direct artistic assault on man’s assault on nature. They lacked his blunt force. His condemnation. A 21st century reading of Hudson River School artists could miss their message about how what was once wilderness – or close to it – had succumb to farming and logging, and how that might not be a great thing one day. Their landscapes remain beautiful down through the years. Idyllic today. No such...
Remembering the Colorful Life and Art of Benjamin Harjo Jr.
Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole; 1945–2023) died a year ago May 20. I remember reading his many obituaries at the time. Despite my interest in Native American art, I didn’t know anything about him other than his name which I’d run across a time or two in my reading. I’ve been thinking about Harjo recently after having my first opportunity to spend time with his artwork up close earlier this month at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. He’s prominently featured during its current exhibition, “Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art.” Included in...
A Visit to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
I made my first visit to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in May of 2024. The modestly sized museum has fine holdings of mostly 20th century American art and boasts one of the largest collections of Dale Chihuly glass anywhere in the world. I found myself especially drawn to four Western landscapes. The museum doesn’t specialize in Western art, but these items would hold their weight among the best from the genre. Each shares a fascinating story in addition to their aesthetic appeal. Oscar Brousse Jacobson, The Needles, Colorado Desert (1923) Oscar Brousse Jacobson, 'The Needles, Colorado Desert,' 1923....
In the Studio with Anita Fields
Tulsa’s First Friday Art Crawl opens galleries, museums, and artist studios downtown from 6:00 to 9:00 PM on the first Friday of every month. Most of the artists working at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship’s Archer Studios (109 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.) and greeting visitors are up-and-comers. One is a legend: Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee; b. 1951). Close up look at items inspiring and informing Anita Fields inside her studio. I visited Fields in her studio at TAF on the first Friday of May 2024. Our conversation centered on the time she spent at the Institute of American Indian Arts in...
Blackbear Bosin's 'Keeper of the Plains' Sculpture Celebrates 50 Years in Wichita
Wichita’s Keeper of the Plains sculpture celebrates 50 years with a daylong schedule of events May 18, 2024. Completed by Blackbear Bosin (1921–1980) and erected on May 18, 1974, the installation has become a symbol for the city and a tribute to the Native American tribes who continue gathering at the sacred site. The Keeper of the Plains stands at the confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas rivers in downtown with hands raised in supplication to the Great Spirit–a manifestation of Wichita’s enduring spirit. Keeper of the Plains sculpture along the riverfront in Wichita. Photo Credit Visit Wichita. Bosin...
Jeffrey Gibson's U.S. Pavilion at Venice Biennale Took Root in the West
Jeffrey Gibson knows you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. He draws people in with vivid, joyful colors and fantastical geometric designs. Beauty as an entry point. Then he hits them with colonization’s lasting impact on Native Americans and the country’s endless list of failed promises. Gibson, (b. 1972), a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, became the first Native American artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale – the Olympics of contemporary art – when “the space in which to place me” opened on April...