Catherine Parker
Language Of The Seasons

Based on the Northeast Gardener's Year



Catherine Parker

Language of the Seasons



Please contact the gallery for availability of works from past exhibits.

Exhibition: May 4 – June 2, 2007


The drama of nature and weather in each month of the year and throughout the growing cycles is reflected in Catherine Parker’s collection of new works entitled ‘Language of the Seasons’. The artist’s inspiration came from the book, A Northeast Gardener’s Year by Lee Reich, as well as a musical composition with that name composed by Roland E. Martin.

Catherine writes, “I had heard Ron Martin’s piece composed for soprano, cello and piano a couple years ago and had liked it a lot. Last summer while blueberry picking, he told me he planned to transcribe the piece for the Freudig Singers, which he directs, and asked me to create paintings for the twelve months of the year. It had been in my mind for a number of years to do this sort of thing, to ask myself, ‘what is the color, shape of January, March...?’ I welcomed the opportunity and used the poetry as well as my own feelings about the various months as the source”.

These twelve paintings became an integral part of Roland Martin’s concert of the arts entitled ‘Beau Fleuve: Poetry and Song’, performed at the University of Buffalo and Niagara University in March 2007. The exhibition of paintings was completed with additional pieces inspired by some of the artist’s favorite music and literature.


Catalog of the Exhibition:

1. January
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again –
T.B. Aldrich, “Frost-Work”

2. February
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Wintry boughs against a wintry sky;
Yet the sky is partly blue
And the clouds are partly bright.
Who can tell but sap is mounting high,
Out of sight,
Ready to burst through?
Christina G. Roseitti, “Spring signals to Winter”

3. Summer Woods I
12.5 x 13.5
450.00

4. March
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Ah, March! We know thou art
Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks and threats,
And, out of sight, art nursing April’s violets!
Helen Hunt Jackson, “Verses, March”

5. April
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”

6. Summer Woods II
12.5 x 11
400.00 (sold)

7. In the Middle of Autumn
29 x 25
1850.00 (sold)

In the middle of autumn
Do you hear yellow explosions?

By what reason or injustice
Does the rain weep its joy?

Which birds lead the way
When the flock takes flight?

From what does the hummingbird hang
Its dazzling symmetry?
Pablo Neruda, “Book of Questions”

8. May
22 x 30
1750.00 (sold)

Whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the flaires gynnen for to sprynge,
Farewel my bok, and my devocioun!
Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Legend of Good Women”

9. June
22 x 30
1750.00 (sold)

Tell you what I like best –
‘Long about knee deep in June,
‘Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine – some afternoon
Like to jes’ git out and rest,
And not work at nothin’ else.
James Whitcomb Riley, “Knee Deep in June”

10. July
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Then came hot July, boyling like to fire,
That all his garments he had cast away:
Upon a Lyon raging yet with ire
He boldly rode, and made him to obey;
Behind his back a sithe, and by his side
Under his belt he wore a sickle circling wide.
Edmund Spenser, “The Faerie Queene”

11. Studio Still Life
22 x 26
1600.00 (sold)

12. August
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Fairest of months! ripe Summer’s Queen
The hey-day of the year
With robes that gleam with sunny sheen,
Sweet August doth appear.
R. Crambe Miller

13. September
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Next him, September marched eeke on foote;
Yet he was heavy laden with the spoyle
Of harvests riches, which he made his boot,
And him enricht with bounty of the soyle.
Edmund Spenser, “The Faerie Queene”

14. Cattails and Cottonwoods in Winter
23 x 15
875.00 (sold)

15. Through Thy Grace
Inspired by The Chester Miracle Play, Canticle 2, Abraham and Isaac, musical score by Benjamin Britten
31.5 x 28
2400.00 (sold)

16. Sunflower and Allium
19.5 x 13.5
600.00 (sold)

17. Apple Tree
13 x 12.5
550.00 (sold)

18. October
22 x 30
1750.00 (sold)

Season of mists and yellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel, to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease
For summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells.
John Keats, “To Autumn”

19. November
22 x 30
1750.00 (sold)

Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape,
Still hangs – and that is all.
Susan Coolidge, “November”

20. Teasels and Dandelions
14 x 11
500.00 (sold)

21. Still Falls the Rain
from a poem by Dame Edith Sitwell
35 x 30
2750.00 (sold)

22. December
30 x 22
1750.00 (sold)

Through the hush’d air the whitening Shower descends,
At first thin wavering; till at last the Flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished Fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white,
‘Tis brightness all.
James Thomson, “Seasons. Winter.”

23. A Dancer to God
Inspired by a poem The Death of Saint Narcissus by T.S. Eliot, musical score by Benjamin Britten
diptych, each panel 30 x 22
3100.00 (sold)


• All measurements are in inches, height precedes width.
• All works are executed in watercolor, gouache and charcoal.
• All works are framed with conservation matting backing and glass.
• Other works by the artist are available through Meibohm Fine Arts.
• Artists website: www.catherineparkerpaintings.com
• A Suite of Fine Art Prints of the 12 month series is available.
• A 2008 Calendar featuring Parkers images and related poetry is available.