This story was originally written by Pam Kragen
Encinitas woman raising money, creating documentary to tell artistic couple’s international love story
Jean Radakovich a resident of Encimitas touches one of her family sculpture as she is filmed for a documentary about her parents, Svetozar “Toza” Radakovich and Ruth Radakovich. Misael Virgen • u-t -
ENCINITAS — Jean Radakovich may not paint or make sculptural jewelry like her late parents, but she’s creating her own artwork on film.
The Encinitas mother of two has devoted most of the past four years to a documentary that will tell the harrowing but true love story of
postmodern wearable art designers Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich.
After the American-born intellectual Ruth met the Yugoslavian painter “Toza” in 1946 Belgrade, they spent six years separated by the Iron Curtain.
Using secret messages coiled up in pill bottles and hidden underneath the surface of watercolor paintings, they hatched multiple escape plots that
landed him twice behind bars.
Finally in 1952, they reunited in Paris and moved to the U.S., where they became leading members of the Allied Craftsmen movement in San Diego.
During their heyday, their work was nationally known, and they partied with the likes of Jonas Salk and Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. But after Ruth died in
1975 and Toza followed in 1998, they fell into obscurity. Today, their surviving child Jean, 59, is determined to bring her parents’ art and remarkable
love story back into circulation.
“Because of the struggle they had to be together, my parents didn’t take a lot for granted. They lived every day,” she said. “They were creative, fun
people, and everything was an adventure to them.”
This week, a film crew led by director Paul Alexander Juutilainen is conducting interviews at the family’s longtime compound in Encinitas.
Toza and Ruth purchased the ranch-style property in 1958 and gradually filled every room and outdoor area with their art, including hand-hewn wood doors,
bronze hanging and wall sculptures, large abstract paintings, mosaics, small wooden boats and a jungle gym.
Among the interviewees are family friend Klaus Flouride, bassist for the Bay Area punk band The Dead Kennedys, Allied Craftsmen metal artist Arline Fisch and
famed Santa Ysabel sculptor/designer James Hubbell, for whom Radakovich works as an archivist. She still needs to raise another $150,000 to $200,000 to finish
the film, titled “Forging Love and Wearing Sculpture.” The money will pay for final edits and a trip to Europe, where she’ll trace her father’s early life as a nationally
ranked swimmer and skier, prominent art student and Royal Yugoslav Army cadet, who spent time in a German prison camp and forced labor camp during World War II.
Toza was working as a graphic artist at a United Nations war relief program in Belgrade when he met Ruth. Well-bred, well-educated, well-traveled and an artist herself,
Ruth had worked in a bomber factory during the war and took a clerical job in Belgrade to help feed the poor in postwar Europe. They fell in love practically on first sight.
“They didn’t even speak the same language. It was one of those ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ sort of things,” Radakovich said.
A year later, the U.N. program dissolved, Ruth was sent home, and Toza — who went to work for a Yugoslavian art journal — was forbidden from traveling.
Over the next five years, they exchanged letters and secret messages through his family. Hidden in care packages, she sent pieces of a boat he could assemble to escape,
but when he made the attempt he was captured and jailed. Finally in 1952, he defected during a business trip to Paris. After a two-year wait, they received permission to
marry and move to Rochester, N.Y., where he made a big splash with his paintings and began teaching and studying metalwork at the School for American Craftsmen.
Radakovich said the 1950s were a time of great change in the art world. Formally trained artists and apprentice programs were beginning to compete with self-trained artists and studio craftsmen who worked in collaborative communities.
Toza and Ruth were excited by the experimental nature of the crafts movement. They wanted room to build a studio where they could work outdoors year-round.
They found it in Encinitas, where they moved 57 years ago with their daughters Jean, then 2, and Saika, 2 months.
“There was less traditional resistance to craft here in San Diego,” Radakovich said. “There was no freeway, and it was known as the end of the line.
The people here were like pioneers. They were a tight-knit, like-minded, high-energy community, and Ruth and Toza were among the first ‘follow your heart,
just do it’ artists.”
The couple experimented with metal, wood, glass, enamel, plastic and fiberglass and learned techniques from Hubbell and others. Toza taught art at San Diego
State and Palomar College, and they became known for their unique, modernist style. Ruth’s jewelry was fine and delicately detailed, thanks to a dental wax casting
technique they learned in Rochester. Toza’s sculpture was bold and had an Old-World, medieval style with forms inspired by armor, machines, boats and plants.
He dedicated himself to art-making and teaching. She focused on child-rearing, networking and the business side of their art. Radakovich said her parents never fought,
respected each other deeply as spouses and artists, and passed their sense of adventure on to their children (Saika passed away a few years ago).
“Growing up, our house was the cool house,” Radakovich said. “My parents had wild, crazy parties with 200 or 300 people and they built a giant easel that six kids could
paint on at the same time.”
Ruth enjoyed crafting eclectic party guest lists. A typical soiree would have DNA researcher Francis Crick rubbing elbows with guitarist Peter Sprague and the neighborhood
Sparkletts delivery guy.
In 1974, Ruth was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died just five months later at the age of 54. Radakovich said her father was stoic over the loss but struggled to carry
on.
“My mom had been his best friend and his connection to the old world. After she died, he didn’t put himself out there again, and his work fell into obscurity,” she said.
Before he died at age 80, she promised her father that one day she’d mount a retrospective of their combined work.
What she first envisioned as an exhibit morphed into a biographical catalog and ultimately became a documentary.
Radakovich works several part-time jobs and couldn’t afford to make the film on her own. She raised $16,000 through a Kickstarter campaign last year, and relatives
have put up the rest. To fund the final leg of the project, she’s organizing another fundraiser and exhibit in November at the Media Arts Center San Diego. She’s also
looking for research volunteers. More information can be found on her website.
Radakovich said every time she tells her parents’ story, people react with surprise that it hasn’t been made into a film thriller.
“I have dreams of it as a feature film,” she admits. “But for now I just want to get their story out to the world as quickly as I can.”
Encinitas woman raising money, creating documentary to tell artistic couple’s international love story
ENCINITAS — Jean Radakovich may not paint or make sculptural jewelry like her late parents, but she’s creating her own artwork on film.
The Encinitas mother of two has devoted most of the past four years to a documentary that will tell the harrowing but true love story of
postmodern wearable art designers Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich.
After the American-born intellectual Ruth met the Yugoslavian painter “Toza” in 1946 Belgrade, they spent six years separated by the Iron Curtain.
Using secret messages coiled up in pill bottles and hidden underneath the surface of watercolor paintings, they hatched multiple escape plots that
landed him twice behind bars.
Finally in 1952, they reunited in Paris and moved to the U.S., where they became leading members of the Allied Craftsmen movement in San Diego.
During their heyday, their work was nationally known, and they partied with the likes of Jonas Salk and Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. But after Ruth died in
1975 and Toza followed in 1998, they fell into obscurity. Today, their surviving child Jean, 59, is determined to bring her parents’ art and remarkable
love story back into circulation.
“Because of the struggle they had to be together, my parents didn’t take a lot for granted. They lived every day,” she said. “They were creative, fun
people, and everything was an adventure to them.”
This week, a film crew led by director Paul Alexander Juutilainen is conducting interviews at the family’s longtime compound in Encinitas.
Toza and Ruth purchased the ranch-style property in 1958 and gradually filled every room and outdoor area with their art, including hand-hewn wood doors,
bronze hanging and wall sculptures, large abstract paintings, mosaics, small wooden boats and a jungle gym.
Among the interviewees are family friend Klaus Flouride, bassist for the Bay Area punk band The Dead Kennedys, Allied Craftsmen metal artist Arline Fisch and
famed Santa Ysabel sculptor/designer James Hubbell, for whom Radakovich works as an archivist. She still needs to raise another $150,000 to $200,000 to finish
the film, titled “Forging Love and Wearing Sculpture.” The money will pay for final edits and a trip to Europe, where she’ll trace her father’s early life as a nationally
ranked swimmer and skier, prominent art student and Royal Yugoslav Army cadet, who spent time in a German prison camp and forced labor camp during World War II.
Toza was working as a graphic artist at a United Nations war relief program in Belgrade when he met Ruth. Well-bred, well-educated, well-traveled and an artist herself,
Ruth had worked in a bomber factory during the war and took a clerical job in Belgrade to help feed the poor in postwar Europe. They fell in love practically on first sight.
“They didn’t even speak the same language. It was one of those ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ sort of things,” Radakovich said.
A year later, the U.N. program dissolved, Ruth was sent home, and Toza — who went to work for a Yugoslavian art journal — was forbidden from traveling.
Over the next five years, they exchanged letters and secret messages through his family. Hidden in care packages, she sent pieces of a boat he could assemble to escape,
but when he made the attempt he was captured and jailed. Finally in 1952, he defected during a business trip to Paris. After a two-year wait, they received permission to
marry and move to Rochester, N.Y., where he made a big splash with his paintings and began teaching and studying metalwork at the School for American Craftsmen.
Radakovich said the 1950s were a time of great change in the art world. Formally trained artists and apprentice programs were beginning to compete with self-trained artists and studio craftsmen who worked in collaborative communities.
Toza and Ruth were excited by the experimental nature of the crafts movement. They wanted room to build a studio where they could work outdoors year-round.
They found it in Encinitas, where they moved 57 years ago with their daughters Jean, then 2, and Saika, 2 months.
“There was less traditional resistance to craft here in San Diego,” Radakovich said. “There was no freeway, and it was known as the end of the line.
The people here were like pioneers. They were a tight-knit, like-minded, high-energy community, and Ruth and Toza were among the first ‘follow your heart,
just do it’ artists.”
The couple experimented with metal, wood, glass, enamel, plastic and fiberglass and learned techniques from Hubbell and others. Toza taught art at San Diego
State and Palomar College, and they became known for their unique, modernist style. Ruth’s jewelry was fine and delicately detailed, thanks to a dental wax casting
technique they learned in Rochester. Toza’s sculpture was bold and had an Old-World, medieval style with forms inspired by armor, machines, boats and plants.
He dedicated himself to art-making and teaching. She focused on child-rearing, networking and the business side of their art. Radakovich said her parents never fought,
respected each other deeply as spouses and artists, and passed their sense of adventure on to their children (Saika passed away a few years ago).
“Growing up, our house was the cool house,” Radakovich said. “My parents had wild, crazy parties with 200 or 300 people and they built a giant easel that six kids could
paint on at the same time.”
Ruth enjoyed crafting eclectic party guest lists. A typical soiree would have DNA researcher Francis Crick rubbing elbows with guitarist Peter Sprague and the neighborhood
Sparkletts delivery guy.
In 1974, Ruth was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died just five months later at the age of 54. Radakovich said her father was stoic over the loss but struggled to carry
on.
“My mom had been his best friend and his connection to the old world. After she died, he didn’t put himself out there again, and his work fell into obscurity,” she said.
Before he died at age 80, she promised her father that one day she’d mount a retrospective of their combined work.
What she first envisioned as an exhibit morphed into a biographical catalog and ultimately became a documentary.
Radakovich works several part-time jobs and couldn’t afford to make the film on her own. She raised $16,000 through a Kickstarter campaign last year, and relatives
have put up the rest. To fund the final leg of the project, she’s organizing another fundraiser and exhibit in November at the Media Arts Center San Diego. She’s also
looking for research volunteers. More information can be found on her website.
Radakovich said every time she tells her parents’ story, people react with surprise that it hasn’t been made into a film thriller.
“I have dreams of it as a feature film,” she admits. “But for now I just want to get their story out to the world as quickly as I can.”
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