Doylestown’s Dynamic Duo

John and Susan Smith promote Doylestown with videos, social media and their signature gift basket business—Bucks County Baskets and Doylestown Baskets

Call them promoters. Or marketers. Or Doylestown enthusiasts. Actually, it’s probably a little of each. Because whatever the title, if you want to fully know Doylestown, you need to know John and Susan Smith. This dynamic duo spends their time searching out information about area events, businesses, and people, creates professional quality videos and then posts them on their Instagram page known as the borobuzz aka: Doylestownborobuzz.

They come by their business naturally. The couple has resided in the borough since 2019, where Susan says, “I love being able to walk everywhere.” It’s certainly the charm for most residents. But so is the community spirit. And if there is a testa- ment to capturing it on video, the Smiths have done it very well.

Take for example a Doylestown staple—The Bagel Barrel. Susan was introduced to Bob Kelly of Fox 29 News, Philadelphia. Bob was looking for some ‘material’ for his morning segment and Susan sprang into action. What better place to gather town folks than this beloved town breakfast/lunch staple? The plan fell into place, Bob Kelly showed up at 3:15 a.m. with Susan following. Bob spoke and joked with residents on air and then, was escorted out-of-town on a vintage fire engine—compliments of the Doylestown Fire Company. John caught it all on video. And Patrick Murphy, owner of Bagel Barrel, couldn’t have been more pleased. Celebrating his 30th year in business, the segment was a great way to celebrate, and Patrick says, “The borobuzz has brought in a lot of business for the entire borough—not just me.”

That’s just one of dozens of videos John produced since they started the ‘buzz’ in January ’21. Just when so many businesses were struggling to stay alive in the midst of a pandemic, along came the best in technology to provide a little Rx to stay afloat. Both John and Susan, with backgrounds in communications and media, offered small businesses just what they needed—to reach into people’s phones and invite them back in. “Our initial goal was to do this during the pandemic. It was hard seeing businesses struggle, so we asked ourselves how we can help support them. That was the genesis of the idea,” John says. And the com- munity jumped on board.

“It’s a labor of love,” says Susan. And it’s dovetailed well with her for-profit basket businesses—Doylestown Baskets and Bucks County Baskets. All custom-selected, her customers will ask her to put together themed items for gift-giving. Custom Mercer tiles grace the front of each basked containing items such as Raymer’s chocolates, County Theater gift cards, local wine, area castle and event tickets. And for locals, it’s free delivery as well. For others, it’s items from businesses both in and outside of the borough that are selected. All around, it’s all about community—loving it, promoting it. And most definitely having fun at it.

Laurie To is Communications Director of Bucks Beautiful. You may know that the non-profit organization is dedicated to making Bucks County a more beautiful place by planting bulbs, developing gardens and reforestation initiatives. Headquartered in Doylestown, Laurie met Susan and John through the Doylestown Cardinal last year. “They’ve been amazing in helping promote our events,” Laurie says. It all began when Susan approached Laurie about doing videos and even providing one of her gift baskets to be used as a raffle at one of their fundraisers. The couple also did a social media promotion which helped direct traffic to the organization and increase their followers. “We were flattered that they were offering all this complimentary, out of the goodness of their hearts. We have a tiny marketing budget. Having someone put in time and effort was very special to us.” It’s also been a great tool to visually show people what their events look like—even what to wear in advance of the next year’s gala. And that has turned into a marketing tool for gaining sponsorship too.

You might say that Susan is the frontwoman—the poised former Miss Pennsylvania who is experienced on camera. Add to that her periodic appearances on QVC and you have a perfect on-air personality to lead the content. John, who is in coffee sales, has been making videos since he was a kid, utilizes his phone to shoot the videos, edit them and upload them to the site. From reaching out to planning to staging to shooting and editing, the process can take upwards of a dozen hours. And every bit of it is non- profit.

One of their favorites has to be a holiday video. “For Christmas, we gathered some community members, got them up dancing to Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You,” Susan says, “We also danced to a Justin Timberlake video.”

As local events find their way onto the calendar, John and Susan find their way to make a video to bring it to life. Event listings are great—this just takes it up a notch and provides something visually stimulating. Nothing to get you out the door and into town for the bike race, arts festival, Bucks Beautiful, restaurant specials and bands. “People are very willing to participate,” says the couple, “People will ask us to do one for them.” And most always, they oblige.

But the questions begs, with careers and seven children between them, time management is an issue. With an increasing number of people and businesses vying for videos, John and Susan are once again on the move. This time, a forprofit business called Bucks County Network. “We came up with the idea because we have resources to offer people, like professional videographers that can put ideas together for them in two-minute videos. They will tell their story, while providing content that they can also use on their own social media site,” says John. They will take the form of YouTube videos that serve as what John calls a repository for town. It will be fee-simple and a nice service for businesses who need help with social media promotion.

So, Susan and John will continue to be the first in their families, and perhaps a good part of the community, to know exactly what is going on in the borough. But you’ll be a close second. And if you’re social media shy, this may just give you the incentive to download the Instagram app to your phone, search for the site and see first-hand what all the ‘buzz’ is about for yourself.

Find the borobuzz @borobuzz or doylestownborobuzz on Instagram (IG) For more information about Susan’s baskets, visit www.buckscountybasket.com.

Chrysa Smith is a contributor to the magazine and continually navigating her way through Instagram.

v By Michele Malinchak

Filling Empty Spaces

From painting a mailbox to designs on clothing to painting landscapes, representational / interpretive artist Ilene Rubin has been filling empty spaces with paint since she was a child

Aristotle coined the phrase: “Nature abhors a vacuum,” meaning that every space in nature needs to be filled with something. For most of her life, artist Ilene Rubin has attempted to fill those empty spaces with paint. According to her, almost anything with a paintable surface is fair game. Though she began by decorating objects, she is best known today for her paintings, especially her landscapes.

As a girl she’d paint things around her parents’ home like the mailbox, an old radiator and her closet doors. Later on at college she painted a mural on someone’s dorm room wall which, she said, “I got in trouble for.” The mural stayed up until the end of the semester when she was told to remove it.

Ilene then painted designs on clothing, boots, purses and furniture in different motifs ranging from folk art to landscapes. And while she still paints objects, her primary focus has shifted to painting landscapes in a variety of mediums. For the past 14 years she’s devoted herself to preserving rapidly vanishing scenes due to development and natural decline.

“I want to feel that I’m there in the painting and that others can walk into it even if the place is no longer there, almost like a dream.” One of her paintings featured Lock #11 on the Delaware Canal in New Hope, PA. Though the canal looks different now, she can still visualize the scene and the two swans that once glided across the water.

Her style, which she describes as repre- sentational/interpretive, varies depending on what she is painting. A former teacher once said to her, “You are two different artists—you have to decide which one you are.” To which she replied: “No, I don’t.”

“I do lean toward impressionism more than photo realism but in all things, the magnet is texture and color. Beauty is everywhere and I see details and texture in everything. The details pop out and I try to capture them.” Her intention is not to copy every brick in a building, but rather to create a visual story about what she wants to convey. She will ask herself, “Have I said everything I wanted to about that scene?”

She doesn’t want to paint with her eyes so much as her heart. “Art is an emotional response,” she said, as she put a hand over her heart. “Look at that chair over there, how the light is bouncing off the metal or the coffee cup on this table. You can give anything dignity and respect by painting it. Every painting is a love affair.”

The transition from painting objects to creating fine art happened gradually. “I lacked the skill set,” she said. Primarily selftaught, she learned from books, teachers and her peers.

In 2007 while living in Boulder, CO, Ilene decided to take art lessons when she had difficulty finding work. Her teacher, Lillian Kennedy, became her mentor and the classes provided a valuable social outlet. From that time on, painting became a fulltime hobby.

“I learned by first copying a Redfield painting, but Lillian stressed the importance of becoming my own artist.” Ilene started out painting with acrylics and then learned pastels, watercolors and oils. “It took a lot of patience and tenacity,” she said.

Even more influential than her mentor was Ilene’s husband, Mitch, who encouraged her to develop her talent into something greater. “When he gave me the first set of paints, and then again, a few years later my first set of pastels, his knowing comment was, ‘See what you can do with these.’ That made all the difference in taking me from a place where I doodled on walls and radiators and challenged me to put my creative energy onto canvas.”

Before painting she does sketches and value studies, often printing a black and white photo of the scene. Somehow, she knows how her paintings will turn out in the end, but to keep her on track she takes photos of her work as she goes along. “It helps me check my progress and keeps me accountable.”

Born in Philadelphia, Ilene grew up in Elkins Park and entered her first art contest when she was nine. A newspaper sponsored the contest in which contestants had to draw the profile of a dog’s head. She remembers how excited she was to receive her winning prize in the mail—her very own sketchbook.

Graduating from Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences with a B.S. degree in retail management and a minor in textile design, she worked as forecaster and allocator of sales at Guitar Center, the Walking Company and Harbor Freight Tools. In addition she became department manager at Strawbridge & Clothier and Lord & Taylor.

Ilene’s a night owl and paints between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. “I’ve always been very family oriented,” she said, “and didn’t want to disturb them by painting during the day. Children and home have always come first.” Though her children are grown now and she has three grandchildren, she still keeps those late hours.

Since moving back to PA in 2008 from Boulder, she has studied with Bucks County artists including John Murdoch, George Thompson, Betty Minnucci, Dot Bunn and Philadelphia based Patrick Connors.

Artists who inspire her include John Constable, Jean-Baptise-Camille Corot, Joaquin Sorolla, and Vincent Van Gogh. Contemporary artists include Andrew Tischler, Jos Van Riswick and Michael James Smith.

Ilene is affiliated with several art groups including: Doylestown Art League, Artists of Bristol on the Delaware, Artists of Yardley, New Hope Art League, Artsbridge, Abington Art Center and Arts and Cultural Council of Bucks County. She served as vice president of the New Hope Art League from 2014 to 2016 and co-founded a group called Broads with Brushes that offered local artists the opportunity to show their work.

Ilene’s work is represented by Off the Wall Framing and Gallery in Skippack, PA and is also available for purchase on her website: www.ilenerubin.com.

Malinchak is a freelance writer and avid gardener from Quakertown, PA.