A set of exhibits spotlights the characters and scenery of Big Sur.

Agata Popęda here, looking ahead to a weekend full of events since the art, culture and night scene calendar starts to pick up speed with the upcoming fall. When things are slow and I wake up on Sunday morning with an urge to go somewhere but no plan, I just take Highway 1 and go to Big Sur. The landscapes astonish me each time.

But of course, Big Sur—with its unique history, late development and the cast of interesting residents, artists, hermits and nature enthusiasts—is much more than a landscape. If you want to approach it differently than from the perspective of Highway 1 and understand its depth without crossing the gates of often closed private roads, Monterey Museum of Arts has something for you.

Four different exhibits, each exploring Big Sur as a cultural mecca, will be on display throughout the fall in the museum headquarters on Pacific Street in Monterey.

A World Apart: Big Sur in the Mid-Century is the largest exhibition of the four. An essay adapted from the exhibit catalog by curator Wendy Van Wyck Good provides a comprehensive introduction to this world.

A Garden of Earthly Delights: Henry Miller’s Big Sur, curated by the Henry Miller Memorial Library’s executive director, Magnus Torén, is a gate to the social world of writer and watercolorist Henry Miller. Read more in a conversation with Torén, another seeker in Big Sur and a fitting curator of Miller’s legacy.

The exhibit A Sense of Wonder: Photographs of Big Sur shows iconic Big Sur photography by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Wynn Bullock and Henry Gilpin. It includes all black-and-white photography; most are landscapes.

Finally, spilling over Big Sur boundaries, is Human | Nature: California Zen in Big Sur and the Bay Area, curated by David Keaton, an expert on post-war and abstract California expressionism. While only one of the artists, Sam Francis, lived locally (in Carmel), Arthur Monroe spent time in Big Sur; John Anderson visited Tassajara and the Esalen Institute; Bernice Bing had her first Esalen residency in 1967; and James Suzuki exhibited at Henry Miller Library.

I’m personally interested the most in the Henry Miller exhibit, as I’m a sucker for everything Henry Miller. The other exhibits encourage me—and perhaps you—to learn more about the art, and the characters of old Big Sur, a place where so many artists, explorers and independent souls made their home.