New works by Norman artist Rick Fry will be on exhibit beginning May 1,1998 at Prairie Moons, 577 Buchanan.  Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Fry, a Norman resident since 1980, was born in Shawnee.  During his childhood he lived in 14 Western states, all except Washington and Oregon.  He graduated from Del City High School and attended Rose State College in Midwest City.  He also attended Grover Cleveland Art Institute in Oklahoma City.

Fry worked as a layout design and graphic artist for Action Printing in Norman.  He later formed his own company, Rick Fry Illustrated Design, and created visual art and design work.  He also has worked as a graphic artist for the Norman Transcript and Design Graphics.

At present he works part-time doing framing at Hobby Lobby to devote more time to his art.  His wife, Carla Fry, has the “real job”, he said.  “Any success I get I owe mostly to her because of her support.”

He placed first or second in many art shows and festivals across Oklahoma, including the Mayfair in Norman, Nescatonga in Alva, Run for the Arts in Stillwater and Arts for All in Lawton.  He was accepted into the Oklahoma City Arts Festival in 1992.

Fry is a self-taught amateur ornithologist and naturalist.  He won the George Niksch Sutton Bird Art Contest from the Wilson-Cooper Ornithological Society in 1992.  He has created a number of designs for the Oklahoma Ornithological Society and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Fry specializes in bird portraits and is also an accomplished wildlife and landscape artist.  He has spent a good portion of his life studying wildlife and its habitats, with a particular interest in birds.  He believes a wildlife artist must be an observer first, in order to interpret the creature and its surroundings, and he must also be able to see what gives his subjects life.

As a self-taught artist, Fry has been influenced by George M. Sutton, Robert Bateman, Don Eckelberry and Louis Aggaziz Fuertes.  He is also enthusiastic about a recent visit to the Thomas Moran exhibit.

“Looking at his work has changed me,” Fry said.  “Thomas Moran has changed how I see landscapes.  There was no way for me to prepare myself for the visual stimulation that I encountered at that Thomas Moran exhibit.”

Not long after his visit to the exhibit, Fry experienced a breakthrough, he says.  He was painting with acrylics when “something just clicked.”

I spend 30 years developing a skill as an illustrator,” he said.  “All of a sudden I had a breakthrough and I became an artist.  I don’t think artists are any better than illustrators, but I think there’s a difference.”

As an artist, he explained, “you communicate a vision.  I think also there’s a different passion for what I do as a painter or as an artist vs. as an illustrator.”