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

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.

Visitors to the ArtFest would wonder what events were happening on any given night if not for the colorful and inviting Junebug program Kim Adlerman annually develops. For the past two years, Kim has worked to create an increasingly easy to read, accessible format for the program.

Kim lives in Metuchen, NJ, and has been illustrating, writing, and designing books for children for over twenty years. Her work has been exhibited at galleries, libraries, restaurants, hospitals and other venues both locally and statewide.

For her art, Kim first paints a watercolor base plate. She then applies varying layers of painted figures along with leaves, dried flowers, stones, fabrics, feathers, and many other materials. Kim has always found nature both compelling and awe inspiring. She finds so many naturally recurring elements appear to be so much more than what they are in reality, and conveys this message in both tones and materials evocative of the planet from which they come.

While much of Kim’s artwork typically exhibited comes from her books (including Africa Calling, Rock-a-bye Baby, How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck, and Oh No, Domino), Kim also shows artwork unrelated to her books.

For more information, go to: www.dannyandkim.com or email: kim@dannyandkim.com

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.

For the past two years, Karen has served the ArtFest by helping to coordinate the visual artists who exhibit the four nights of the event. With experience in publishing, Karen has generously shared her organizational skills to make the process a comfortable one for the exhibiting visual artists.

Additionally, Karen is a professional artist, a resident of Metuchen, NJ and a member of the Metuchen Area Chamber of Commerce. She is a graphic designer, who makes pen and ink drawings and paints with watercolors. She grew up and went to school in northern California.

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

With an interest in the arts on many levels, Nadira was quick to say yes when asked last year to take on coordinating the interactive events that take place each of the four evenings of Junebug. All of us are delighted that she and her co-coordinator are willing to take on additional responsibility this year.

“As the producer of Gilles Larrain Art Salon Party (www.artsalonparty.org) I am grateful to work with many talented people on a regular basis. With the creative’s that are involved with Junebug, I have just segued from New York City to Metuchen! Being that this is my hometown I am delighted that Linda asked me to participate in this wonderful event.”

Additionally, Nadira is an agent for photographers. Her company, Manhattan Partners Media, provides access to some of the most widely respected photographers in the industry. Having been an agent at Retna, Ltd in the 80’s and early 90’s she specialized in concert and entertainment photography. She has worked with many artists including New Kids on the Block, Yes, Pink Floyd and of recent, Sir Paul McCartney.

Today her interests have branched out to fine arts and promoting the arts through community building. She is currently revamping her website which will provide a “community” page for emerging artists and other bits and pieces in the art world.

Nadira can be reached at:
nadirafhusain@gmail.com
nadira@artsalonparty.org
nadira@manhattanpartnersmedia.com
www.artsalonparty.org

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)

As a member of the Metuchen Arts Commission, Scott was willing to move out of his “comfort zone” last year and assist with coordinating the Music and Performances at the ArtFest. This year, much more to his expertise, he is organizing the brand new feature of the Short-Films Fest at the Junebug.

Scott is a film teacher at Metuchen High School and hopes that introducing a film component to the Junebug ArtFest will further develop the burgeoning culture of young film auteurs in Metuchen.

Additionally, Scott is a poet and is currently working on his first poetry/film project.

Metuchen has always been home to Dottie and her family. Never one to watch from the sidelines, she has always been active in town and a member of the Cultural Arts Commission for many years. Watching the growth of the Junebug Artfest over the past 4 years is truly wonderful and gratifying - BUT it doesn’t happen without help from everyone in Metuchen – businesses and residents alike.

Since Dottie has a love of the arts but her talents lie in the business arena, those talents have been put to the test these past few years to raise the funds needed to allow Junebug to continue to be the exciting presence in our downtown every Friday in June.

Since opening Winhold Realty in 1982, to now managing Prudential NJ Properties, it has been all about people and relationships for almost 30 years. Having made so many friends in Metuchen made her the obvious choice to call upon everyone who enjoys this wonderful event and ask for their help to make it happen – yet again.

Please consider any level of sponsorship – Dottie will be calling you!!!!

Having the very first “co-winning pets” in the 2010 Junebug Pet Parade, encouraged Stacey and Leslie to get involved with helping to organize this year’s event.  “We had so much fun competing in the Pet Parade, and showing off our dogs wearing their winning costumes in the Holiday Parade, that we wanted to help organize it for this year.  It’s such a fun social event, both for the owners and their dogs, and for the spectators!”

Additionally, Leslie and I run our own dog walking/pet care business called “A Lucky Dog”.  While you may not think that pet care has much to do with the arts, I have been able to incorporate my limited artistic talents of sewing and writing into the business.  The winning costumes were my own original creation and, since the parade, I have begun a blog about my dog walking experiences.  You can find more information about us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Lucky-Dog-Dog-Walking-Service/112379225457325), and if you’re in the mood for a good laugh, I hope you’ll check out my blog at www.offtheleash1.blogspot.com.  

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