Jared Richman '97 is known on campus for his editorial cartoons in the student newspaper, but for many high school students he is the artist behind the illustrations in their Spanish textbook.
The project began when Dirk Mundt '64, owner of Curriculum Press in Albany, N.Y., asked Professor of Visual Arts Walter Hatke to recommend a student to illustrate his textbook, Spanish for Communication. “I had worked with Jared in a couple of my classes and was very impressed with the work he had done. He t seemed made to order for the job,” Hatke says.
Richman did a few initial drawings, which Mundt liked, and was hired to draw the approximately 100 illustrations of key words and phrases. “I was in shock that somebody wanted to pay me to draw, which I love to do,” he says.
Soon Richman was jotting down ideas in notebooks, sketchbooks, textbooks, and even on his hand. “The idea was that the drawings have to be instantly recognizable as the action, word, or phrase,” he explains. So he began work on illustrating hot, cold, nose, hair, ski, sew, cook, clean, and many others.
Richman says the most rewarding part of the project was seeing his work published-and hearing from teachers who liked his drawings. The text Richman illustrated was a revision of an older text, and many of the teachers who had used the older book said that they loved Richman's new drawings.
The previous illustrations, although done by a professional artist, were somewhat boring, Richman says. “I just thought that if I was I kid who had to use this book, I would enjoy it a lot more if I liked the drawings and if they were humorous.”
During his sophomore year, Richman began doing the editorial cartoons in Concordiensis, the student newspaper. He says he loves the opportunity to express his ideas through his artwork, and most of his cartoons concentrate on campus issues. He obtained a Union Internal Education Fund grant to support his research for an study of editorial cartoons and cartoonists, and he raves about the work of the early artists who began the profession. In June, he exhibited his editorial cartoons from the last three years in the Reamer Campus Center. Even though he is an English major who hopes to attend graduate school eventually, he plans to keep drawing.