Roost, Terry Adkins

In Roost, Terry Adkins appears as the ghost of abolitionist John Brown, who was executed in 1859 after leading an unsuccessful armed slave revolt in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). Adkins stands near a lake in Gainesville, Florida, where he imagines that Brown’s group, if successful, could have declared their victory. “Gainesville would have been an ideal geographical location from which to apply guerilla strategies—swampland, etc.—as well as joining forces with Seminole rebels. The appearance of basketry over the head as disguise and anonymity is a device employed by early Japanese assassins. The seeming flowing beard is made from fleece, as John Brown was also one of the foremost shepherds in America at that time, with a sheep farm in Akron. The biblical associations of the good shepherd and his flock are also intentional here. The beard is symbolic of the iconic nature of Brown’s image on the American psyche and launches from the Herman Melville poem, ‘The Portent.’” —Terry Adkins