Czech Refugee Looks For Niche

Art that survives religious persecution and thrives through the ages fits Iva Talacko.

She’s survived communist control, refugee camps and near imprisonment. She’s endured her family’s harassment and her marriage’s crumble.

The traditional pottery she molds and paints seems to know her lasting power. It has stuck with her as it has withstood time.

“I realized I can’t be happy without it,” Iva said, grasping one of her intricately painted pot-bellied vessels by its ear-shaped handles.

Her work has graced the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., but it can’t find a loyal following in the Northwest, where she has settled. Iva - pronounced Eva - risked everything for artistic freedom only to find she can’t sell enough pottery from Coeur d’Alene to feed herself regularly.

“I made a decision. I needed a job to survive,” she said a few hours before washing dishes and cooking at Avergran’s in Hayden Lake.

Iva, 38, planned to quit pottery this year for something more lucrative but found she couldn’t. It is as much a part of her as a birthmark. It connects her present with her past.

Iva Simeckova was 3 when her mother recognized her artistic talents. Her family lived in Moravia, the lowlands of what’s now the Czech Republic, and ran a small vineyard after work. They’d had a large vineyard until communists took over their country and confiscated private land.

The public art school accepted Iva at 5. Dyslexia complicated her academics, but not her art.

She flourished in her element for nine years, then had to apply for a more advanced school. Her poor performances in math and language weren’t helpful. Neither was her parents’ refusal to join the Communist Party.

Her mother’s friend finally secured Iva a spot in the Prague School of Applied Arts, where Iva learned majolica - my-ole-ika.

Majolica is an ancient pottery style from Spain. It begins with terra cotta clay hardened in a low fire to create a consistency like stoneware. It’s glazed, then covered with tiny painted leaves, flowers or other shapes. Sometimes artists worked hares, pheasants or fish into the florid backgrounds.

It spread to Italy where it became famous during the Renaissance. Anabaptists fleeing persecution in the 16th century brought the art to Moravia.

The Prague school taught the traditional art to keep it alive. Students made copies of historical pieces.

“I loved working with clay,” Iva said.

She was fascinated with the art’s history. She longed to travel to other parts of Europe and study pottery in museums. The communist government wouldn’t allow her to travel beyond neighboring Hungary.

Iva studied six years in Prague and perfected the detailed painting. A shop in her hometown, Hodonin, put her to work and told her what shapes to make.

Majolica was popular throughout Europe and sold well. But Iva wasn’t free to use her own creativity on the clay vases.

“I didn’t like having no personal freedoms to travel, read the books I like, freedom of speech,” she said. “I wanted to work on my own, do my own things. I thought about leaving for years.”

Two years into her job, Iva joined a communist youth organization to participate in its trip to Italy and Austria. She was 24. Secret police accompanied the group everywhere.

Iva and a friend slipped away in Vienna. The police tried to stop them but had no authority in Austria. Iva and her friend ignored their intimidation.

The two women headed to a fenced refugee camp they’d heard about on Radio Free Europe and moved into old military barracks. Iva was among hundreds of refugees from communist regimes, but she was only about 60 miles from her home.

She was young enough that Spartan living didn’t bother her. Weeks into her stay she met John Talacko, another Czech refugee. Their similar circumstances drew them together.

The camp placed Iva in a donated boardinghouse in the Alps where she lived while she awaited asylum in Austria. Austria granted few people asylum and the wait was lengthy. Refugees could apply to only one European country. Other options were Australia, Canada and the United States.

Iva applied to Canada. The United States frightened her.

“It had a reputation as a wild country, a place hard to survive in,” she said.

John convinced her otherwise. They’d fallen in love. People in Nebraska offered to sponsor his move into the country. John found sponsors for Iva, too. She arrived in Lincoln, Neb., in 1987.

The Czech government prosecuted Iva in her absence. She was sentenced to a year in jail. She heard how the government harassed her family, fired her father from his job and constantly questioned her parents. But she risked jail if she returned to them.

Nebraska depressed her.

“It was worse than I could imagine,” she said. “There was nothing pleasant to look at. The people were nice but too different. They weren’t traveled.”

She didn’t speak English and wanted mountains. Iva found a job manufacturing medical supplies while she and John waited two years for their green cards. She hated the work, but the money was good. She dabbled in pottery with a local artist in her free time.

“To this day, she still eats very little corn, she ate so much there,” said friend Cheryl Burchell.

A trip to Seattle brought Iva and John through Coeur d’Alene in 1989. They were enchanted and decided to stay.

The couple married and John went to work as a civil engineer. He built Iva a potter’s wheel and they bought a kiln at a garage sale.

By 1994, John’s work was enough to support them and Iva quit a job in electronics to make pottery full time.

She worked 12-hour days molding, firing, glazing and painting in the majolica tradition. She exhibited at the Spokane Arts School, then at Art on the Green.

Customers liked her colorful work, European style and warm smile.

“Her work obviously takes a lot of real fine detail attention. I like the traditional aspect of it,” Steve Gibbs said. He runs Coeur d’Alene’s Art Spirit Gallery and is exhibiting six pieces of Iva’s now.

Iva looked for the right materials all over the country. She finally found what she wanted at the Tacoma Arts Center.

Her initial work was strictly traditional. But Iva’s creativity emerged as she relaxed in her new home.

She made pitcher handles from spiked clay fish and adorned teapots with chirping birds. She painted snails beneath round pyramids of shells and recreated ancient Greek urns with olive leaves and regal horses.

Northwesterners admired her work but bought little. They seemed to gravitate to Western art and nature scenes. Iva’s exhibit at the Smithsonian’s tribute to cultural art in 1997 drew praise but no buyers.

She was willing to wait for the right break until she and John split last summer. Now, a $6-an-hour job provides her more security than her elaborate $800 vases.

“In the right market, she wouldn’t be able to produce enough,” said Cheryl, her friend. Cheryl makes jewelry and works closely with many Coeur d’Alene artists. She owns one of Iva’s handmade vases. “People here don’t understand majolica.”

Iva plans to return to pottery full time in January and try to sell on the more art-knowledgable East Coast as well as in large West Coast cities. But she’ll continue to create her work in Coeur d’Alene, which she won’t leave.

“I love it here, love the people,” she said, her accent adding rich character to her English. “If I left, I’d have to come back all the time.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON VIEW

Coeur d’Alene’s Art Spirit Gallery, 908 Sherman Ave., is exhibiting six of Iva Talacko’s majolica works through Saturday. Admission is free. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To see Iva’s collection, reach her via e-mail at maiolica@hotmail.com.