Tift Merritt and Thomas Sayre: Four Walls, Four Songs (Reprise)
February 15 @ 7:00 pm
Join us on February 15th, 2025 for this special performance by grammy-nominated musician Tift Merritt and NC Artist Thomas Sayre.
Four Walls, Four Songs, a sound response to Thomas Sayre’s Four Walls, returns to Cameron Art Museum for a reprise. The performance explores the burned, brushed, rusted, and razed layers of Sayre’s visual work. Merritt’s multi-movement piece uses voice, piano, and guitar while drawing us deeper into the elemental artworks on display in Sayre’s Four Walls. Drawing from a deep friendship and creative dialogue between the two artists, Tift Merritt crafts a sound exploration that resonates with the materials, visuals, and questions posed by Sayre’s monumental piece.
The first showing of this performance in September 2024 sold out completely, with one attendee describing it as “a remarkable multi-sensory exhibit that pushed the bounds of the typical gallery/museum experience.” You won’t want to miss this collaborative and evocative show by Tift Merritt and Thomas Sayre!
CAM Members $75; Not-Yet Members $100
Tift Merritt is a Grammy-nominated musician who wanted to be a writer until her father taught her guitar chords and Percy Sledge songs. She has toured around the world with her sonic short stories and garnered a reputation for making her own way and setting an interesting artistic table. The New Yorker calls her “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” Don Henley, with help from Mick Jagger, kicks off Cass County with a cover of her song Bramble Rose. Taking time off the road to raise her daughter, Merritt began work on larger, site specific projects by way of collecting found objects in the abandoned asylum in her hometown as forgotten, essential language. Merritt has also collected artist interviews researching creative process and integrity on The Spark for Carolina Performing Arts and Marfa, Texas Public Radio. She is a Practitioner-In-Residence in collaboration with the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University and lives in North Carolina with her daughter Jean.
Thomas Sayre is an American sculptor and painter. He designs and builds public art projects and private commissions all over the world. His current work includes large paintings made with tar, smoke, gunshots, welding material, earth, and fire. Sayre is a founding principal of the multi-disciplinary design firm Clearscapes, alongside architect Steve Schuster. The team designs numerous civic, educational, and museum buildings.