Who We are

CHAIR

John Marron is a zen multimedia artist, an author of 2 books of poetry (“Oiyeau” and “Blips”), an OlliRU teacher of Haiku/Sumi-e, a founding member of the Highland Park Artist Collective, a Board member of Main Street Highland Park, an LGBTQA activist with GLSEN, a 26-years retired School Base Counselor at UMDNJ, the curator of the 2016 Highland Park Window Art Crawl, and an artist and educator in K-12 schools most of his life.

VICE CHAIR

Amee Pollack is visual artist and educator whose public sculpture, Bench of Our Times, will be re-installed shortly at the Eugene Young Environmental Education Center on River Road in Highland Park.

Her artists’ books and prints, published under the banner “Spitz & Pollack”, are in over 50 permanent special collections such as the Brooklyn Museum, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (Smithsonian), The New York Public Library Print Collection, The Getty Research Institute, and Yale University. She earned her MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a fellowship from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. 

Amee recently retired from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in New Brunswick where she was the Undergraduate Program Advisor for the Art & Design Department for 12+ years. Prior to her position at Rutgers, she taught and developed art curriculum and residencies throughout New York City and lectured on Book Arts, Print and Papermaking at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, the College of New Rochelle, and The University of the Arts.

TREASURER

Sonya Elefante is a clinical social worker and artist who has lived in Highland Park for the last several years. She was drawn to this town due to the amount of public art, as well as social justice initiatives the town and its residents participate in. She is passionate about creating art and helping others, and currently works in the substance use and mental health field as a Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor. Art has the power to heal, and Sonya hopes to begin incorporating art into her therapeutic modalities.

Sonya creates art in the form of large scale acrylic paintings, watercolor and ink, drawings, and photography. She enjoys utilizing patterns, movement, and texture in unique ways. In her free time, Sonya likes to hike, explore, engage with nature, see live music, spend time with family and friends, and travel to new places. She spends a lot of her time with her golden retriever Charlie, who enjoys walks, treats, and naps.

GUERILLA ART CLUB

With the exception of a few years away for graduate school, Nikki Gonzalez is a lifelong resident of Highland Park. She is a professor of Psychology at Middlesex College where she teaches courses like Social Psychology and The Psychology of Death & Dying. Art plays an important role in her classrooms where her students (enthusiastically!) participate in assignments such as: a Personification of Death drawing; a Selfie-A-Day photography project; and a design-your-own humorous bereavement card challenge. Outside of the classroom, art also drives her personal passions. Nikki edits and publishes The Parliament Literary Journal, collaborating with writers and artists from across the world to create a quarterly literary magazine. She has also created a series of children's books called "If, at the Museum" designed to make art accessible to children so they are inspired to create their own masterpieces.

Most recently, her story "If, at the Zimmerli" was published through the Zimmerli Art Museum as an ebook with an accompanying art activity guide for families and teachers (www.ifatthezimmerli.com).

Nikki hopes, with her role on the HP Arts Commission, that she can continue to encourage art in all its modalities across town, particularly emboldening young artists to participate and create!

CO-SECRETARY

Irina Radeva is a 28-year resident of Highland Park who can often be seen around town taking unique and poignant photographs of our beautiful gardens and parks. As an art lover of all mediums and a trained librarian with experience in public and academic libraries, she is dedicated to bringing education and art experience to residents of all ages. When she is not helping to make HP the vibrant town it is, Irina enjoys traveling the world and taking photographs, especially of lighthouses. As the past vice-chair of the Highland Park Historical Commission (2017-2018), she joins the Arts Commission with specific experience in community organization and celebration.

MEMBER

Arianna Astuni is an educator, author, publisher, and proprietor of a small school in quaint and bustling downtown Metuchen, New Jersey. Under her authorship, over a dozen books have been published in various test prep fields. Her love for writing is part of her. It’s not simply reading good writing; it’s writing frantically in tiny notebooks profound things. If she had a second love, it would be travel. As a former journalist, she has lived and worked in Egypt, Paris, London, NYC and various places up and down the east coast. She resided in Cairo, Egypt for 3 years to help start up magazines get their footing. She worked as associate editor and lead writer for the well-known magazine Enigma. While poetry is her first love, she is currently working on a book called “Off Season Traveler”, a collection of prose pieces from travels over the last 20 years.

BOROUGH LIAISON

Jason works as a legal specialist for the Office of Policy and Standards Development, in the New Jersey State Department of Human Services, Division of Family Development. Previously he served as lead counsel for the Local Government Section, of the New Jersey State Office of Legislative Services, Central Management Unit. Prior to that, he was a deputy attorney general in the Elections and Corrections/State Police Sections, of the New Jersey State Department of Law and Public Safety, Division of Law.

Jason has served on the Highland Park Housing Authority since July 2020. He has resided in Highland Park for 15 years and lives with his wife, Rebecca Estelle, and their two daughters, Naomi and Nina.