Janet Brice Parker
A lifetime in watercolor, words and creative work.
Where It Began
At twelve years old, Janet was asked by her elementary-school teacher to create a drawing on the classroom blackboard. When her teacher saw what Janet had done, she called Janet’s parents to the school and told them, “You have to get this girl into art lessons.”
They did. And what began on a classroom blackboard became a lifetime of painting, writing, and creating.
An artist from the beginning
Janet Brice Parker began her formal art training in 1956 at the age of twelve and continued private instruction until 1963, when she entered the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and went on to study with internationally known watercolorist Richard Brough. She was also instructed by Alvin Sella and other accomplished painters who reinforced the importance of composition and design.
Watercolor became Janet’s principal medium. Her paintings are known for color, movement and freshness, while her portrait work reflects her interest in capturing both likeness and personality. For commissioned portraits, Janet would meet and photograph her subjects, then paint from those photographs along with her memory of the person’s appearance and character.
A varied career in art
Janet’s professional life followed an unusually varied path. She worked as an artist for a CBS-affiliated television station in Huntsville, Alabama, and as a freelance designer for advertising agencies. She worked as a set designer for The Lyric Opera in Kansas City, Kansas, and as a courtroom artist for television stations in Huntsville and Nashville. She also worked as a graphic designer for Dragonfly, a screen-print company in Nashville.
Her work received recognition in both fine art and graphic design. Her honors include an award in a Huntsville Art League juried show, a Gold Addy from the Huntsville Advertising Federation, an Outstanding Graphic Design in Television award presented by Dynamic Graphics, Inc. of Peoria, Illinois, a drawing selected for the Permanent Collection at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and a purchase award at an annual juried show in Grayton Beach, Florida.
Before turning primarily to commissioned work in her home studio, Janet was represented by galleries in Alabama, Florida and South Carolina, including Miller Gallery in Oneonta; Grisham Cornell in Decatur; Emerald Gallery in Fort Walton Beach; Acquisitions in Foley; Magnolia House and Mon Image in Grayton Beach; McLaughlin in Georgetown, South Carolina; and The Main Street Bistro in Hartselle. Her paintings and portraits are held in private collections throughout the United States.
From painting to the written word
Painting has never been Janet’s only means of expression. She is also a writer whose work draws deeply on memory, family and the South. Her book The Ivy Stays Green grew from her experiences of growing up in a small Southern town during the 1950s and 1960s, along with stories passed down by her parents and grandparents.
Writing was part of her family heritage as well. Janet was influenced by her grandmother’s published memoirs and literary example, and she remembers her father’s funny rhymes and made-up songs. Those influences helped form a creative life in which painting, storytelling, poetry and music naturally overlap.
Jimmy Buffett’s Coconut Telegraph
Among Janet’s publication credits is Jimmy Buffett’s Coconut Telegraph — a connection she especially enjoys remembering.
Janet was also a featured poet in Lucidity in Houston, Texas, and her work appeared in the Trouvere Company Writers’ Gazette Newsletter, The Blount Countian newspaper, Kota Press and Kudzu Monthly internet journals. She was selected for an interview in the online magazine Poetry Life and Times. Two of her poems were selected for the book Cosmic Brownies, a collection that also included work by Maya Angelou.
Still creating
Janet’s creative interests have continued to expand. Along with watercolor and portraiture, she has written poetry and books, including The Ivy Stays Green and Do Right Rhymes. Her words have also found another life through songs built from her own lyrics.
At 82, Janet continues to create. Painting, writing, poetry and music are not separate chapters so much as different expressions of the same lifelong impulse: to notice the world, respond to it, and make something from what she sees and remembers.