NEW WORK BY ARTIST RICK PROCTER

Rick Procter

Rick Procter's new exhibit opening Friday at Gallery 100 emerged from a time in his life when his wife, Frances, was away on a long-term teaching assignment.

"This is what you do when you're not doing anything," he says, surveying the new collages on the walls of his downtown loft.

The exhibit of Procter's recent works opens Friday at the gallery at 119 Independence St. A reception for the artist will be held from 5-8 p.m. Friday.

The 64-year-old Procter was a professor of art at Southeast Missouri State University from 1968-1987. His work is found in 14 museums and galleries across the U.S. He has won eight purchase prizes in exhibitions in 20 different states.

Though he does three-dimensional work that often includes images his friends call "Rock Heads," the new show is composed entirely of collages. They are confabulations between images that are meaningful to him but also usually carry certain messages to the world at large.

"If you put a flag down, right away you love it or leave it," he says.

Old airplanes, antique handguns, Rancho de Taos, the female form, circus animals, riverboats and his own picture are some of the figures that populate Procter's collages. He titles his work only because he knows people like labels. So one that includes a picture of him is called "Famous Local Artist."

In other works not chosen for the show but lining the walls of his loft can be found Mexican insurance policies, a copied image of Old St. Vincent Church and fireworks wrappers gleaned from the riverfront after the Fourth of July,

All together, they compose his "Fourth of July Series" created last year between July 5 and November. "It was some kind of compulsion," he says.

Procter doesn't like talking about his art, its significance or his sources.

"You have to talk about it," he says. "But sometimes in an attempt to communicate the incommunicable, we say silly things."

Though he claims to be Cape Girardeau's "second oldest hippie," he says his attachment to these American images is heartfelt.

"I believe in mom and apple pie," Procter says.

What he doesn't believe in is artistic pretense, especially for his own work.

"I'm not sure this has any connection with what has traditionally been called art," he says.

Also opening Friday at the Arts Council's Lorimier Gallery is an exhibit of large-scale oil paintings by d'Ann de Simone, who teaches at Michigan State University.