The Light Side of Darkness
Ivana Tisler with a lamp she designed, and the action-painting that sold at “Peaks, Pearls and Prairies” for $380 with the one-of-a-kind frame also designed by her. To her left rests a favourite book, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma – Photo by Melissa L.A. Bishop © Picture Forever
written by Melissa L.A. Bishop – Photos by Melissa L.A. Bishop © Picture Forever
Edmonton, AB - Ivana Tisler has the kind of smile and warmth about her that people both love and envy because she emanates an internal joy that people everywhere seem to be seeking. The 32-year-old is the creator of "Pockets of Happiness", a company specializing in designing art and furniture using upcycled wood that high-end furniture architects simply throw-away. With ingenuity, passion and creativity fueling her fire, she conceptualizes and constructs bright, geometrically-shaped wood bowls, ornate cutting boards, and art lamps cloaked in wood panels with star constellations cut into them. Modern asymmetrical picture frames envelop the canvasses she paints, Pollock-style. She also has a side project with partner Jacob Norley called "Jake & I", selling pieces only to collectors at art shows. Everything and anything Ivana constructs radiate the same beauty that is inside her hugging smile.
However, it is her history that makes her inviting smile all that much more incredible.
She was born the only child to her parents, her mother, a Bosnian factory-worker and her Croatian father, a concert violinist who taught in the countries capital: Sarajevo. Her parents divorced when Ivana was just three, and she lived between them until she was 9-years-old in Sarajevo. The Bosnian War began in April 1992, and it was then that Ivana's life got turned completely upside down.
Imagine momentarily: One day, a war just creeps up behind you. While watching a Jean-Claude van Damme movie, you begin hearing grenades falling all around you. You ask yourself, “what is going on?”, as you are assaulted by pandemonium crashing in foreign sounds. Your heart jumps at the ruckus the bombs make, screaming through the air and exploding with declarative death wishes that bleed terror into the oxygen. The awful noise is no further than a four-block radius away from you. You rush to the window and look outside, expecting to see smoke close by. Instead, you perceive only the usual-typical. Confusion fills your mind. There is a blaring alarm coming from within the building, ringing incessantly around your head like a hammer.
"What in the world is going on?!?"
There are 12-stories in this apartment building, and you hear people running down the stairs like rabbits sprinting away from a hungry wolf. The neighbours converge collectively to the "kennel", the small basement area given to each resident for storage. Blankets roll out for the children in the pitch dark while the women, still in shock, materialize trepidation that pierces from their thoughts into their conversations. The men discuss the politics of what is to come, articulating what everyone is thinking — should we be afraid? Some neighbours just pack up their family and disappear forever into the shadows. The day after it has begun, many of the tenants have left on a permanent vacation seeking some sense of safety. Your father decides it is time to join them.
While her Dad is collecting some of her belongings, Ivana ventures outside in curiosity and collects shreds of scalpel-sharp shrapnel that is now grenade garbage. She grabs pieces from the ground for the same reason travellers bring home souvenirs. She is only nine-years-old. Then together, they scurry away in search of a low target sanctuary.
She runs from her childhood home, Sarajevo, to Vogošća, a mountainous region thirty minutes outside Bosnia's capital city. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her Grandma, Grandpa, her aunt and uncle and their kids, Dunja and Filip. Food shortages quickly become an issue. Hermetically sealed UNICEF boxes arrive on an unknown timeline bringing rationed supplies of flour, sugar and little packets of peanut butter that become diet staples. Fire trucks provide the only source of water. Her aunt and uncles farm occasionally enrich their diet with milk and eggs. Heat is provided via a wood-stove, and light is offered only through the sun and candles. When not collecting food, water or chopping wood, Ivana plays cautiously with the other kids.
At night, the adults distract themselves by playing cards. However, every day is a potential death sentence. Ivana's next-door neighbour, a young, healthy male, likely to be taken to be a soldier, takes matters into his own hands. After a fight with his girlfriend, he pulls the pin of a grenade right in front of Ivana. She stares at him in disbelief while the grenade erupts from his hand. Ivana recalls watching him "[explode] into a million pieces." A mere 15-20 minutes later, Ivana recounts crawling out of hiding with traumatic shock, and gazing through the window to observe the mans mother "stands there with an enormous bucket of water, brushing away patches of blood diluted by water in a river of blood just draining down the street." She is just 10. This is normalcy for war-torn countries. Ivana offers that humans "are afraid to have to murder other people because when religion comes into play, people are put in situations where you have to murder innocent women and children, and for a lot of men, it isn't easy." Families with religious differences end up in situations where they must choose between killing their entire family or being killed. A devastatingly difficult choice, undoubtedly.
One day the military shows up at the families' door, wanting to take Ivana's uncle into the army because of his military training. He professes a lineage trail that must be confirmed by a background check, but the story simply buys a couple days for their escape. The family of seven hurriedly packs up into two vehicles and vanishes. They travel in a convoy of six other families fleeing by car through the mountains en route to Belgrade, Serbia. However, before the 300-kilometre trip is over, Ivana's family split into two in a roadside separation. Ivana travels with her grandmother, settling temporarily in Belgrade. After four months here, they move onwards to Zagreb, Croatia. Here, they stay with her grandmother's brother and wife in a beautiful home nestled outside the city. Her great-uncle is a professor, and she recalls it being "difficult for him to have a child with a Bosnian accent in the home." Her mother, meanwhile, is organizing paperwork for Ivana to move to Hamburg, Germany, with her newly divorced sister and her boyfriend. However, because this aunt has just found freedom from an unhappy relationship and feels strained by the responsibility of taking care of her niece, she begins being physically and verbally abusive to Ivana. The childless boyfriend takes a great liking to Ivana and shows her kindness. He keeps a cupboard full of chocolate and takes her to drive a truck around the country on his work trips. This creates a jealous tension for the relationship, and the aunt arranges for Ivana to move in with her 22-year-old sister and boyfriend in Bad Oldesloe, Germany. She resides here for a few years. Even though Ivana is moving with people from her family, she harnesses feelings of alienation, commenting that moving is "a tough thing to do as a child because you don't really feel like you belong anywhere. You always feel like a burden to everyone around you."
After moving to Germany, Ivana describes her life as "Cinderella-ish," while the lazy boyfriend watching television gave her an endless list of chores while her aunt worked full-time. Eventually, Ivana's mom immigrated out of Sarajevo, and they moved out of the sister's apartment into their own. This is when Ivana is electrocuted by a broken vintage lamp her mom brings home. She survives the 240 volts coursing through her body but undergoes surgery to repair her hand. Ivana is 11-years-old. German citizenship is considered but too difficult to attain, and so they go back to Sarajevo. Upon arriving at the apartment, Ivana grew up in, they meet a soldier at the door who holds a gun to her mom's head. Ivana recounts him threatening to "never return because the apartment [belonged] to him now!" They do not question him.
Her mom lands in an abusive relationship, and Ivana begs for refuge with her Dad, who succeeds in acquiring immigration papers to join him in Canada. She moved in February 1998 at 15-years-young. After a brief stay in Toronto, she relocates to Fredericton, New Brunswick, and lives with her Dad and his new wife, a professor's former student. They both have a promise of work in the music community. Her mom immigrates to Toronto, and her aunt moves to Edmonton. Ivana adds English to her language proficiency in Croatian, Bosnian and German. She applies to the University of Alberta in 2001 and completes her BA at the standard age of undergraduate convocation in 2007. She is 24-years-old.
Pockets of Happiness is an obvious extension of Ivana's love of art and her tenacious spirit. A friend gives her off-cuts of high-quality woods that she creatively glues together, which produces her first set of bowls. She sells them for $50 each at an art show. "I put so much of my time into it, I might as well as given them for free," Ivana reminisces. Later, she manipulates angles and plays with colour, the bowls becoming the vibrant, beautiful creations they are today. She now sells her pieces through Carbon on 124 Street, Habitat on 104 and art shows like Minbid (www.minbidauctions.com) alongside the curator, neighbour and good friend Marcus Coldeway. He comments that "she is one of the people who sell every show and makes art for every show… she doesn't hold back." She sold her most recent bowl for $300 to a woman looking to simply display it. She auctioned her custom-framed blue pendulum painting for $380 at the 15th Minbid show at Harcourt House on Saturday, November 20th.
Pockets of Happiness Bowl with Turquoise Paint – Photo by Melissa L.A. Bishop © Picture Forever
What started out as creative expression in her downtown artist loft has now transitioned to Jacob's woodshop. They create pieces in nature that lessen her allergic reactions, aggravated daily by the three felines shes adopted. Her pure heart is genuinely angelic as she sacrifices her own health for the no longer orphaned cats.
What makes her stand out against her peers is her aspiration for when she leaves this earth. Most artists aim to be famous, even if only after their death. Ivana exemplifies her spirit in her aims postmortem. She chews slowly on the response of what she wishes to be remembered for after her death and states:
"I just really hope that people feel some sense of growth with some of the things that I've discussed with them or some of the things that I've done with them." Her best friend, Josh Burger, who Ivana said is so important to her that she "would show boyfriends the door if they questioned her love for him." lived next door to her for years. Josh expressed that, "there is really no one like her that I've ever encountered.'" He comments that her unique draw is that "she's not afraid of doing stuff that is completely unconventional". His admiration for her drive in life is full of love and respect. Everyone who knows Ivana Tisler seems to be in awe of her or inspired by her. She has an energy that is uplifting, genuine and is saturated in a true appreciation for life.
Her ambitions go beyond art. She created a Facebook Group six years ago called "Love Your Life", where she posted positive messages and goals to strangers for 100 days straight. Her impact literally saved lives as people messaged her and said her actions caused them to give up on their suicidal wishes. Ivana's life is a candle for us to all remember that we can become great even through terrible adversity. Now, if only the rest of the world could imbue just a fraction of the joy of living into their own lives, we may be, just might have fewer children growing up in the scary world Ivana had to.
