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/