The Store of Joys
Writers Celebrate the North Carolina
Museum of Art's Fiftieth Anniversary

978-0-89587-174-9
0-89587-174-2
$22.00 paperback
9 1/2 x 9 1/2
150 pages
B-W photographs, Index, Appendix

Out of that mass of miracles my Muse
Gathered those flowers, to her pure senses pleasing;
Out of her eyes--the store of joys--did choose
Equal delights, my sorrows counterposing.
--from The 21st (and last) Book of the Ocean to Cynthia by Walter Raleigh

"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 forward.

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: