We wanted to introduce them to you and give you a glimpse of their connections to the arts.

DUFFY DILLINGER
Junebug 2012 SCULPTOR

We are delighted to select hometown Metuchen artist, Duffy Dillinger as this year’s sculptor. As artist and educator, Dillinger has broad background in this field.

She has taught art at Mount Saint Mary Academy, Watchung, NJ for twelve years. She has a BFA from the University of Massachusetts and studied at the School of the Worcester Art Museum as well as The Johnson Atelier- Technical Institute of Sculpture.

Additionally, since 1990,Ms. Dillinger has taught art at the Hunterdon Art Museum. She has exhibited sculpture and mixed media pieces throughout New Jersey since 1983.

Watch for the monthly “Sculpture Update” on the Junebug ArtFest Facebook page!

JONI SCANLON
Junebug PUBLICITY COORDINATOR

Publicity Coordinator Joni Scanlon brings much experience to her work with the ArtFest. With consultant, Lynda Woodworth, and a team of publicity assistants, Joni is poised to spread the word about the ‘Bug.

A public relations professional and former freelance writer, Joni is the marketing director for a New York-based educational services company. Additionally, she is currently working on a biography of Irish revolutionary Gearoid O'Sullivan, a distant cousin.

Word about the Junebug ArtFest would not be spread without the ongoing efforts of Publicity Chair, Lynda Woodworth. A professional communications consultant, Lynda has generously leveraged her writing skills and publicity know-how to raise awareness and visibility of the ArtFest for the past two years.

Additionally, Lynda is an accomplished painter, specializing in oil painting and watercolors. She is a regular student at the Academy of Art in Highland Park and has worked with academy director Ana Eloisa Soto-Canino for the past several years.
Click here to access her family’s on-line art studio: http://www.costwoodstudio.com/.

Lynda’s inspirations include her father, Roger Woodworth—a self-taught watercolorist specializing in outdoor, wildlife scenes; her mother, Eileen Harkless—a 30+-year teacher who encouraged creativity and visual thinking throughout Lynda’s childhood; her husband, Lawrence Costello, a talented photographer and music connoisseur; her mother-in-law, Virginia Costello—a gifted artist in many different media whose work lives on in her children’s and grandchildren’s homes; and her son, Jackson Costello — who amazes her with his instinctive creativity, his “unedited” free spirit and his mischievous talents.

SANDY ROSEN
Junebug PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Residing in the original Metuchen library while raising her children, created many fond memories of this special town. 

Recently relocated to Princeton, NJ, Sandy was excited to collaborate with other artists and be part of this year's Metuchen Junebug ArtFest!

The rewards and challenges of the creative process have always played a significant, integral role personally and professionally. 

Her background is in design, printmaking, illustration and painting from the former Philadelphia College of Art. 

BY DAY, she is principal of Strategic Marketing/Design group. 

SMDgroup specializes in B2B website and marketing campaigns for small to mid size companies. 

They offer integrated services for multi-media /print campaigns as well as direct mail, advertising, corporate brand/identity and conference graphics.

Visit Sandy at: www.smdgroup.net 

BY MOONLIGHT and DAWN, she is developing a collection of new paintings and prints along with commissions upon request. 

Conceptual, with bold colors, some of her imagery conjures a primitive gestural quality, while others have a whimsical and representational style.

Many of the limited editions may be adapted for printing on different substrates as well as different sizes than shown on her website examples.

Visit Sandy at: www.sandyrosenart.com

I look forward to meeting new people and spreading enthusiasm for the arts.

Professional web-designer and professor of all things “cyber”, Lauren not only keeps our website up-to-date, but tweets the Junebug into the virtual world and gives us monthly updates about our “followers” and Facebook page activity. In short, thanks to Lauren, we are on the “cutting edge” of social networking!

Lauren (AKA Lauren the Cartoon Goddess) received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and MA from Syracuse University. She has been working professionally as an illustrator and designer for over 25 years, specializing in web design and digital media. In her spare time, she paints and draws. Her work has been shown and sold in galleries, boutiques, cafes and restaurants.

A graphic arts educator, Lauren has lectured, taught classes, given workshops presentations and seminars for illustrators, cartoonists, animators and designers at various universities and institutions of higher education. At present, she teaches web design at duCret School of Art. She has been an active member of the Graphic Artists Guild since 1990, serving on local and national levels. She currently serves as treasurer.

This is the second year Mark is serving the ArtFest by helping to coordinate the visual artists who exhibit the four nights of the event. It is also his fourth year participating as a displaying visual artist. Although not a full-time artist he has exhibited locally as well as elsewhere in New Jersey. He uses much of his free time in art making.

Mark is a fine art photographer specializing in B&W image making using traditional film and wet darkroom processing. His work includes abstractions of natural scenes, event and portraits and fine art photographs depicting the human figure. These also include some abstracts. He can be seen around the Metuchen/Edison area photographing things that many people walk by without noticing.

Mark has a variety of these images on his web site at:
http://gsphotoguy.photography.com/

Having exhibited at the Junebug last year, Judy became so interested in the ArtFest, that she volunteered this year to be part of the organizing committee. Working with Karen and Mark, Judy is making a major contribution to this year’s process.

Additionally, Judy is a fine art photographer capturing images of cityscapes and architecture, abstracts of common items and digitally altering photographs to create new images.

www.judyweinbergphotography.com

It can be a dangerous thing to live near one of the Chairpersons of the Junebug…but Ellen is a gracious and generous Metuchenite!  She willingly took on co-coordinating the Interactive Events and enthusiastically agreed to continue in that role this year.

“Helping to bring great stories to readers is akin to bringing art to the community.  I get enormous satisfaction from seeing how creativity directly inspires the person experiencing the art whether the mode of delivery is via a book, a canvas, or speaker.”

Additionally, Ellen is the International Licensing Agent at Nancy Gallt Literary Agency, a literary agency representing authors and illustrators of books for children.  Ellen represents the agency's authors and illustrators internationally by licensing the rights to titles to publishers abroad. 
(web-site: nancygallt.com)

SERGIO GONZALEZ
Junebug SPONSORSHIP COORDINATOR

Metuchen has been home to Sergio for over 10 years, and along with his wife Karen Winters (born & raised in Metuchen) plus their 3 children, always delighted in the fairs, parades and the Junebug artfests Metuchen offered. Not someone to take these events for granted, Sergio knew it took plenty of hard work, participation and coordination from many in town to execute every planning aspect in order for it to be successful.

With a creative business background and experience successfully raising funds for several enterprise ventures in Manhattan, Sergio decided to offer his assistance to raise the necessary funds to bring to life Junebug's biggest and best Artfest yet in 2012.

According to Sergio, "Downtown businesses and the community as a whole benefit from all these events planned throughout the year, of course... but the Junebug Artfest brings even more. It adds a certain soul-enriching quality to Metuchen's summer Friday nights by sharing with us the talent, creativity and acumen of so many wonderful local & regional artists." He added: "If I can help convey that powerful feeling I get when I watch my children be amazed and inspired while walking up and down Main Street during previous Junebug Artfests, to every single person and business in town with the ability to sponsor in any way they can its continuation, I am confident we will achieve our goals in 2012 and raise the bar for the future growth of this wonderful event!"

Sergio and Karen recently renovated the space previously occupied by The Raconteur in order to continue an independent Bookstore in Metuchen while adding a few extras to convert it to something even more appealing to a larger segment of the population (hence its name: To Be Continued... Bookstore Boutique & Café).

Visit us at the bookstore at 431 Main Street;

online at Facebook.com/metuchenbookstore,

or via email: tobecontinued@metuchen.us

CYNTHIA REYNOLDS
Junebug MUSIC & PERFORMANCE COORDINATOR

Cynthia has called Metuchen home for more than 12 years. She moved here from New Mexico where she was born and raised. Since moving to New Jersey she has worked at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen as an Accountant. She has dabbled in photography and even done a showing at the Macey Center located at the technical school in Socorro New Mexico.

Recently Cynthia’s mom moved into Metuchen and was hoping to find out more about the Boro of Metuchen and possible volunteer opportunities within the Boro. In trying to help with this enthusiasm, Cynthia took her mom to the June Bug committee meeting announced in the Crit which stated the committee needed more volunteers. During the meeting, the enthusiasm of getting this auspicious event going, rubbed off. That in addition to the fact that her husband Al is a musician and had participated in the 2011 events, seemed to point to a natural conclusion that she work as the Music Coordinator for the 5th Annual June Bug Art Fest.

Angela joined the Metuchen Area Chamber of Commerce in July 2011 as the Executive Director. Before coming to the chamber office, she was a corporate event planner in the pharmaceutical field and still consults on private events such as weddings. As a Metuchen resident and avid volunteer, Angela got involved with the Junebug ArtFest in 2010 and 2011. As chamber liason to the committee, she looks forward to bringing her years of event planning experience and focus on chamber member businesses to the planning process. Angela is excited to join the group of passionate volunteers on the Junebug committee who make it all possible.

David was one of the very first people caught the enthusiasm of the Junebug and who signed on to help create the event four years ago. As a full-time professional photographer with a studio on Main Street, David immediately saw the value of Metuchen hosting an ArtFest.

“As the past President of the Chamber, I personally saw how the Artfest boosted our businesses on Main St. It also gives life and expression to Metuchen's rich artistic culture.”

Being an artist as well as a photographer, David uses his photographic images as the basis for his paintings which he creates using the computer. He adds final applications in a variety of media such as chalk, watercolors, markers or whatever moves him at the moment. His artwork can be seen at www.yessy.com (search for Glasofer). To reach David at work go to: www.imageup.com

Inspiration for the Junebug surfaced in Linda’s studio in the Fall of 2007. She carried the germ of the idea to Caroline Woodruff, the Metuchen Chamber Administrator, who pointed her to the Metuchen Cultural Arts Commission. There was immediate responsiveness to the idea in both the business and arts communities, and very quickly an exciting collaboration was born.

As the artist-owner of Earthsongs: Works in Clay, Linda is deeply interested in helping to make Metuchen as much of an arts-destination as possible. With an MFA in painting and ceramics, Linda has been involved in the arts her whole professional life. Currently Earthsongs is her full-time work. Essentially, it is a fine-art ceramic studio creating custom tiles, sculpture and murals for residential and commercial spaces as well as offering classes and workshops for adults and children.

Linda’s website gives a broad overview of the kind of work she has produced in the past and continues to develop; visit it at:

www.CLAYSONGS.com

For very regular updates, images and comments about what’s doing at the studio, visit the studio’s Facebook Page:

Earthsongs Ceramic Studio http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=72190922569