Monthly Archives: February 2012

Her Philadelphia Tales, Book Party

Lilliana Didovic, Of South 2, Smile Restaurant, Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic Book Signing Party, 2/25/2011, Instagram.

A brisk north wind bit into DoN‘s face as he walked up 22th Street to Smile Restaurant on a Saturday night for his book signing party. Lilliana and Joseph reserved the dining room upstairs and invited all of our friends to celebrate the publication of Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic. The creation of the book was an adventure in itself, DoN is a blogger, publication in print is not a goal for DoNArTNeWs. DoN is into page impressions, rankings and search engine optimization results and the effects of reporting on Philadelphia art in Google. But Lilliana said DoN‘s writing uses “nice words”.

Lilliana proposed collecting reviews from DoN‘s blog posts with her art in book form, an art book to sell and use to further her career as a painter. Writing a book and writing a blog are not the same thing, page layout in a column is very different from designing a book. A blog you can always go back and fix, a book is a one shot deal. No pressure. The book is published by CreateSpace on Amazon.com. The 98 page book is full color, 9.5 x 11″ glossy soft cover with beautiful prints, even now when DoN thumbs through it feels surreal that an actual, tangible product has emerged from his writing.

Beyond Lilliana and DoN‘s wildest expectations, right at 6:00pm people emerged from the freezing Winter evening to crowd into the dining room made ready with a table full of beautiful Thai appetizers by chef Ken and Lilliana‘s own famous Bosnian chicken salad. The wine flowed and people actually lined up to buy books and sit with the Lilliana and DoN to have their copy autographed. C. Todd Hestand the mastermind behind the Side Arts blog platform which enabled the bulk of the material used in the book was there chatting with artists, gallery owners and educators…Lola Z, Spike, Ted and Ona (the Ona-bomber), Carl and Liz, Regina, Steve, Chris Z, Rachel, Kathryn, Dr. & Mrs. Dunn, Gordan’s liver transplant doctor…OMG – it was so crowded and the roar of conversation was so loud that Chris Z yelled in DoN‘s ear, “I think there are a lot of Bosnians here!” The evening was wonderfully cosmopolitan, so many languages, so many people from all diverse backgrounds, artists and entrepreneurs, all together in the middle of down town Philadelphia for something as East Coast elite and snobbishly intellectual as a book signing party. DoN LoVeD IT!!! The night will always be one of DoN‘s most memorable moments.

Thank you so much to Lilliana and Joseph for hosting a beautiful evening. This fantastic team of husband and wife, who have been through so much, have shown hospitality towards DoN that has always been exceptional. Telling Lilliana‘s amazing story with DoN‘s writing and information design is an accomplishment DoN has only dreamed about until now.

Lilliana Didovic, The City, Smile Restaurant, Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic
Book Signing Party, 2/25/2012.

Her Philadelphia Tales, The Art of Lilliana S. Didovic, Lilliana S. Didovic book signing party, February 25th, 2012.

Other stories about Lilliana S. Didovic: Lilliana Didovic @ TRUST, Lilliana’s Tales, Her Philadelphia Tales, Structure and Gesture

[disclosure page]

Leap Year! DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog achieved a new milestone for page views topping 2000 unique visitors on one day, February has seen a consistent climb in page views achieving the highest rankings for the blog so far. DoN is also a Contributing Writer to Side Arts Philadelphia art blog and is participating in a demonstration on how to write a blog post on the Side Arts platform at the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at the University of the Arts, March 24th, 2012, 1 -3:00pm.

Get tickets http://corzocenter.ticketleap.com/side-arts-demo/

This Is My Home

Prince Twins Seven-Seven

InLiquid v.12

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Ellie Brown, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Brenna K. Murphy, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Clarissa Shanahan Schirmer, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jim Houser, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jung Wah Ahn, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Jordan Griska, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Donna Usher, LGTripp Gallery, InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012, ICE Box Gallery, Crane Center for the Arts

Rachel Zimmerman, the mastermind behind the artist representation website InLiquid, sent DoN a FaceBook message asking if he had received his V.I.P. invitation to the InLiquid v.12 Benefit Auction 2012? DoN double checked his inbox and passes to the pre-opening Silent Auction cocktail party for the biggest art event in town unopened. Cool! 4:00 – 6:30pm, Friday February 10th – DoN had copped the ultimate art party early-bird special!

The ICE Box Gallery in the Crane Center for the Arts is massive but the hall was filled with art of all kinds, tables brimming with collectibles throughout the room, even extra walls to accommodate the array of art and DoN had it all to himself, sort of, for about thirty minutes. Wandering through the collection DoN spotted familiar artists from across Philadelphia and lots of new faves. A cocktail bar was in the middle of the room and a bartender made DoN a drink with gin, aloe vera juice and muddled basil, in the Gray Area (the large gallery next to the ICE Box) tables with fantastic treats like a thin crustini with a smear of sun dried tomato paste topped with a dollop of pate’. Displayed around the room were silent auction bidding sheets for dozens of desirable services and a group of prints selected by jurors from submissions. So, even if you didn’t win your bid you can still buy a collectible art print.

Soon DoN had a good buzz going from the gin, wandered back in the hall to absorb the sights and ran into artist Amie Potsic. Walking and talking we were struck by the high quality of the art: a bold red and black painting by Da Vinci Art Alliance Executive Director David Foss, massive abstract expressionist paintings by one of Amie’s faves, Jung Wah Ahn, Brenna K. Murphy‘s hair art, Ellie Brown‘s bag photographs (she photographs people and the contents of the bag they carry) and so much more by many great Philadelphia artists.

Amie Potsic is an artist, photographer, maven, Director of Career Development at CFEVA, and has been an InLiquid member artist since it’s inception in 1999 – that’s pre-Google. Amie told DoN the more web presence she has the better. InLiquid is a non-profit organization providing hundreds of artists not just portfolio web pages but real world opportunities to show their artwork, their website is information rich with artist images, bio’s, statements, events and news. Some of the donated art is still for sale on the InLiquid website. Support the efforts of InLiquid artists and businesses who gave so generously from their own inventory to help the artist community hub in Fishtown grow and thrive.

More photographs on DoNArTNeWs FaceBook page.

DoNArTNeWs Philadelphia Art News Blog

Photographs by DoN Brewer

Daniel Gerwin

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Daniel Gerwin, Orpheus’ Mistake, acrylic on found framed mirror, 28″ x 17.5″, 2011, Center for Emerging Visual Artists at the Galleries at Moore (photo from the West Collects website – vote for Daniel Gerwin)

DoN met Daniel Gerwin at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists Introduction 2012 new Fellows reception at the Galleries at Moore. “Title Magazine is the title of a new on-line, visual arts magazine based in Philadelphia. We launched in August.” DoN asked what platform the magazine is based on? Tumblr? “It’s on WordPress, I’m not the technical guy, I’m into the editing and all that side of it, getting writers and whatever. We have someone else who’s a very good graphic designer and she does everything. All the WordPress work. I can’t, I don’t know anything about it.”, he said laughing. DoN added a link to Title Magazine in the DoNArTNeWs blogroll.

Daniel’s work employs tromp l’oeil in a new way, painting on wood and mirrors, DoN is reminded of the painting style of Gerhard Richter the way the paint is smeared yet presents a naturalistic expression, “When you look at it, it’s immediately clear that it’s paint. The other piece that I have is a shaped painting.” DoN was mesmerized by the optical illusion of the painting, it switches back and forth from wood parquet to abstract painting. “The tromp l’oeil, I’m interested in, the whole idea of an illusion, that is subverting itself and actually calling your attention back to what’s real about it, it’s reality of the actual paint in front of you. But I’m also interested in the whole idea of, like the first thing you said about parquet flooring, the domestic space and the way we inhabit our space. And then I sort of have the thought that the way, as we live in a space over time, we actually come to haunt that space ourselves. And then it haunts us back.”

“It’s that integration between us and the place that we live. My studio is in my own home, I work in my home so that idea of a presence is interesting to me. The other thing that is on my mind with these mirrors is there’s a tradition in the Jewish religion, which is how I was raised, when somebody in your family dies you cover the mirrors. My mother died in 2009, so there’s something of that that is still part of my work and there’s that aspect that I’m thinking about and it also has to do with when you, because there’s bits or mirror that you look between, you do catch glimpses of yourself. There is both the sense of self-voyeurism and a further extension of the mystery of representation, you’re there but you’re sort of not quite there. But that there is a division brought by the paint between our world and the other side. So that connects back to me through those traditions.”

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), in cooperation with Moore College of Art & Design, presents an exhibition by the new Career Development Program Fellows. A highly selective fellowship with only a 2% acceptance rate, these six artists represent some of the most promising talent among emerging artists in the region: Leslie Friedman, Daniel Gerwin, Rebecca Gilbert, Kay Healy, Heechan Kim, and Johanna Inman.