“Brother Everald” Brown belongs to the family of self-taught and visionary artists, which curator José Gómez Sicre defined with the Spanish word primitivos, and in English have been referred to as folk artists. A member of the Ethiopian (Coptic) Orthodox Church, Brown’s various mediums of expression —painting, carving, and singing— were means of communicating spiritual visions to his brethren, as well as prayerful desires to the Almighty. An active Rastafarian, Brother Everald, his wife, and son, shared religious visions through the use of meditation and cannabis. Reggae music also served as a call to consciousness regarding the integration of social justice and spiritual fulfillment in Brown’s ministry. Totem is carved out of what looks like a slightly bent tree branch. From the bottom to the top, the sculpture consists of a small base representing the ground, some animals, and a group of seven figures, both male and female, one of which holds an infant. The figures literally become a totem as each one stands on the other’s shoulders. Their facial expressions range from joy to serious piety. The modesty and humility of the depicted figures stress the accessibility of salvation for the meek and disenfranchised. The grouping evokes a holy family, as well as a communion of saints reaching up to the heavens. The carving conveys both the interdependency of community and spirituality. Brown intended for works such as this Totem to convey an aspirational message of ascendancy and redemption. Everald Brown was born in Jamaica. A carpenter by trade, as well as a musician, painter, and carver, Brown was engaged with both Rastafarianism and reggae, and his art was imbued with older Afro-Jamaican popular culture, such as Revivalism and Kumina. Brown went by the name “Brother Everald” and as such in the early 1960s he established The Assembly of the Living, a mission of the Ethiopian (Coptic) Orthodox church, where the practices of Rastafarianism were carried out. The church was located at 82 1/2 Spanish Town Road in West Kingston until 1973, when the violent socio-political climate forced him to move with his family to Murray Mount in the St. Ann Mountains, not far from where he was born. With his wife “Sister Jenny” and their son Clinton, who was also a painter, “Brother Everald” shared his meditative and visionary experiences. The iconography and narrative within his art were grounded in such visions. Clinton also assisted his father in the preaching ministry at The Assembly of the Living. “Brother Everald’s” artistic production consisted of paintings of his religious visions, carved musical instruments, and wood carvings where totemic shapes or “ladders” consisting of figures, one on top of the other, are prevalent. Curator José Gómez Sicre included his work in five group exhibitions at OAS headquarters starting in 1972. Brown died unexpectedly while visiting family in New York in 2003. Brown’s work was included in a variety of important exhibitions of Jamaican art, both at home and throughout the Western hemisphere. In 2004 the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston opened the exhibition The Rainbow Valley: Everald Brown, A Retrospective.