Student stirs up art for ‘Orono Cooks’

ORONO – Patrick Harpin, 16, a junior at Orono High School, contributed an important ingredient to “Orono Cooks,” the cookbook published recently by Friends of the Orono Public Library in honor of the town’s bicentennial celebration year.

Harpin designed the book’s cover. His design, produced on a computer using Adobe Illustrator, features a woman and two young children, in silhouette, picnicking in Webster Park. Out on the river is a canoeist with a dog for a passenger. Across the river is the Orono townscape. The image evokes a quiet, rich, well-rooted quality of life and a sense of timelessness repose.

“I had fun with it,” Harpin said. “It was for a good cause.”

As a high school junior, Harpin was obliged to complete an independent service learning project in the community to satisfy graduation requirements, said Service Learning Coordinator Deta Pearce. She was looking for ways to involve her students in the town’s birthday celebration projects and took Harpin to a bicentennial committee meeting.

When the young man learned that artwork was needed for the cookbook, he decided to submit a drawing to the cookbook committee.

“The drawing he showed us was spectacular,” said cookbook committee member Ken Nichols of Orono. “He called it a sketch, but we immediately saw the potential.”

“I made a rough draft,” Harpin said, “and they loved it.”

Harpin based his idea for the cover on the style of art used in 1930s Works Progress Administration posters promoting national parks. He said he thought a lot about which Orono landmark to use in his drawing. He wanted something recognizable that had associations for everyone in Orono. He decided on Webster Park, situated on the Stillwater River.

“It hasn’t changed much,” Harpin said. “The river is always there. It’s timely and historic. It’s a symbol of Orono and that’s the whole point. I wanted people to look at the cover and imagine themselves there.”

Harpin has liked to draw ever since he was a small child. “My big thing is cartoons and comics. I draw political cartoons for the Orono High School newspaper, The Inside, and for The Maine Campus [University of Maine newspaper].” In addition to his high school courses, Harpin recently finished up an art class at UM. He envisions a career in digital animation.

In order to fulfill the high school’s service learning requirement, Harpin needed to put in 30 hours of work, but he estimated that he spent more than 45 hours on the project.

“It was a learning experience,” he said. Committee members had their own ideas of how the cover should look, and Harpin worked with them to incorporate some of those ideas.

“Pat was unassuming,” Nichols said. “He knows his skills and how to work with others. It was art by committee and it was a lot of fun to work with him. He accommodated our needs and we couldn’t be happier. It was like working with a professional.”

Harpin is the son of Bill and Martha Harpin. He plays on the soccer team and works on the school newspaper.

“It took time,” Harpin said of the cover. “It had to be recognizable because Webster Park belongs to everybody.”

“It was great to have Pat involved in committee work,” Nichols said. “I hope to see him involved in other projects around town.”

“Orono Cooks” contains more than 400 recipes from local contributors, historical notes and photos. Photographer John Pickering provided photos for the cookbook section dividers. “Orono Cooks” is available at the Orono Public Library for $15. For more information, call the library at 866-5060.