Memoir: Everald Brown (1917-2002) – Part 2
As we saw in the first part of this article, Brother Everald Brown’s development as an artist was associated with his religious and spiritual life as the founder and patriarch of the Assembly of the Living, a small, self-appointed mission of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which he had established in West Kingston around 1960. This association remained fundamental after he became an active participant in the Jamaican art world, although the work he produced for exhibition and sale was more consciously produced as “art”. He was practical enough to recognize the role of his art, and that of his other artist-family members, in providing materially for his family, even though he saw that, too, in spiritual terms. One of his paintings from the late 1970s, now lost, depicted himself with the then National Gallery Director/Curator David Boxer, showing how his paintings inspired by the spiritual presences in the rocky landscape of the Jamaica yielded sustenance for his family, Bread out of Stone, as its title said.
Brother Brown’s early production of ritual objects, musical instruments and paintings for his church community provided the foundation for his later work and the elaborate symbolic universe expressed in it. This included his carved prayer staff, which remained with him throughout his life and now belongs to his family, the seals and other ritual structures he constructed for his yard, and a group of paintings that featured the archangels ushering the believers to the Assembly of the Living. Although he also showed carved sculptures and his increasingly elaborate sculptural musical instruments, which were decorated with painting and carved elements, there was a strong shift to painting in more conventional formats when he started exhibiting his work.
Some of his early paintings, such as Niabinghi Hour (1969), represented the ritual practices of his church community, while others such as Ethiopian Apple (1970) and The Earth is the Lord (c1969) were more emblematic and symbolized his spiritual beliefs. All three paintings are in the collection of the National Gallery of Jamaica. An exquisitely carved early sculpture, Lion Rider (c1972), used to be in a major Jamaican collection but has recently been sold to a foreign collector. It is Jamaica’s loss and a good illustration that far more needs to be done by our cultural agencies to keep key examples of Jamaica’s artistic heritage in the island, and preferably in public collections. Along with the John Dunkley works that have also left the island recently, we have lost too much already.
The more significant shift, however, came when Brother Brown and his family moved to Murray Mountain in deep rural St Ann, in 1974, after life in West Kingston had become too challenging because of the rapidly escalating crime and violence. It is there that he was able to delve fully into his belief in the spiritual interconnectedness of things, inspired by the landscape, the vegetation, and the capricious limestone formations of Jamaica’s heartland. In these works, the land was interpreted as the bearer of spiritual memories and messages, a living, spiritually active, communicative presence, as is perhaps best illustrated by the mesmerizing Bush Have Ears (1976), also in the NGJ collection.
Brown was not the only artist in his family. He shared his spiritual and artistic life with his wife, Sister Jenny. Several of his children were also artists – Clinton, Joseph, Ruth, Sandra and Rebecca – and although they were all clearly influenced by their father, they developed their own artistic voice, the sculptor Joseph especially. The production of musical instruments drums and fantastically shaped string instruments such as the Star Banjos and Dove Harps (in effect lutes), and hybrid forms such as the Instruments for Four People, was an increasingly important part of this collective practice, in which Brother Brown took the lead but to which other family members also contributed. The musical instruments, while available for sale and exhibition, were part of Brother Brown’s vision for a divine orchestra, and were performed by himself and his family, under the name the Glory-I Band.
Brother Brown was a soft-spoken but charismatic character, a family and community patriarch in a positive sense, who managed to draw me into his visionary spiritual world even though I am not religious. Visiting him at Murray Mountain was always a special experience. It invariably involved a precarious climb to Meditation Heights, the sharp-edged limestone platform above his house that served as Brother Brown’s private space of connection with the spiritual and natural world. The view of the surrounding mountains was otherworldly, and the tall structures Brother Brown had built on the hilltop, which served as “spiritual antennas”, left no doubt about the spiritual significance of the place. If I was lucky there would also be a musical performance by the family, and in good Jamaican country style, I never left without being gifted some produce.
At the opening of the Everald Brown retrospective, two years after his death, the Glory-I Band played in his honour, in what became a very intense and extended performance which continued for nearly an hour after the planned closing time of the event. For those who stayed, it was an unforgettable experience. I could feel the powerful vibrations of the drums and the chanting in my body and soul for many hours after. The spirit was with us, and within us, that afternoon.
Everald Brown and his wife Sister Jenny are buried at the family property in Murray Mountain, in decorated, quasi-Ethiopian sculptural graves that are consistent with his beliefs and artistic vision. The family’s spiritual and artistic traditions are still upheld by his children and grandchildren – his granddaughter Venice Black, who works in ceramics, for instance exhibited in the 2017 Jamaica Biennial. It has been a while since I have visited Murray Mountain, but it is a special place, and one of very few sites associated with Jamaica’s self-taught, popular artists that were not destroyed after the artist’s passing. It deserves to be recognized and preserved as a heritage site, along with places where other artists have lived and worked, such as Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds’ church community at Ghandi Road in Olympic Gardens, in Kingston.
Dr Veerle Poupeye is an art historian specialized in art from the Caribbean. She lectures at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, and works as an independent curator, writer, researcher, and cultural consultant. Her personal blog can be found at veerlepoupeye.com.
