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The Store of Joys North Carolina Museum of Art "A celebration of the inspirational potential of great works of art lies before you. When a group of North Carolina's most distinguished writers agreed to create new works in response to objects in the Museum's collection, a remarkable tribute—not only to the Museum's founding fifty years ago, but to the profound, provocative energy of art—was born." Thus North Carolina Museum of Art Director Lawrence J. Wheeler describes The Store of Joys in his foreward. The forty-five contributors to the book were encouraged to construe the commission—to choose an object and respond to it—however they saw fit. Interestingly, the responses distributed themselves nearly evenly among poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. There is no question that The Store of Joys (its title borrowed from a Walter Raleigh poem) succeeds in accomplishing one of its goals—to encourage fresh interpretations of the Museum's paintings and sculpture. And the Museum is delighted to honor its collection in terms of the particular artistic genius of the state, which is everywhere recognized as literary. Contributors to The Store of Joys include:
Reviews “On March 26th, 2000, I visited the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, where I found this marvelously creative book in their gift shop. Prominent North Carolina authors were asked to choose a work of art from their permanent collection and comment on it. How I love connections! This book contains a beautiful poem and a scholarly article both inspired by F.C. Frieseke's painting "The Garden Parasol." F.C. Frieseke was my grandfather; the primary figure in the painting portrays his wife, my grandmother Sadie. You can find images of "The Garden Parasol" and many other Frieseke paintings by searching the web. In this same collection, I found a wonderful poem by James Applewhite, who was my poetry teacher at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His poem was inspired by Winslow Homer's painting, "Weaning the Calf." I had "chosen" this painting as the one I would most like to take home from the museum (their Frieseke is too big for my condo)! For several years I lived across the street from another author represented in this book, Fred Chappell, who was then a professor at UNC-G. Although I was not priviledged to take any of his courses, I did enjoy a poetry reading of his in 1973. I recommend The Store of Joys to all lovers of visual arts, literature, North Carolina, and interdisciplinary studies. The reproductions are excellent, and the authors' reactions add so much to our appreciation.”
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