She married an artist, and now finds comfort in his work

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Hilarie M. Sheets

Merele Williams-Adkins in her family’s home in Clinton Hill, with work by her husband, Terry Adkins, behind her, and a piece by Glenn Ligon, lower left. Credit Cole Wilson for The New York Times

NEW YORK---Merele Williams, a lawyer by training, was sick of dating doctors and lawyers. She set her sights on meeting an artist, and at a party in 1991, she did. That night he proposed, and nine months later they were married. They lived, with their two children, in a Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, brownstone surrounded by Mr. Adkins’s work and filled with collections of African art, musical instruments and pieces by his peers. Long admired within New York circles of African-American artists and curators like Thelma Golden and Kellie Jones, Mr. Adkins died from cardiomyopathy in 2014 at the age of 60. A survey of his sculpture — often refined hybrids of found objects that were used as props in his musical performances — is on view through Feb. 17 in “Terry Adkins: The Smooth, The Cut, and The Assembled.” [More]