14 July 2022
A House Truck Named Rosa
writer: sionainn mentor-king
photographer: michelle marshall
Trisha Fisk sits on her garden steps in the sun of a winter morning, plucking an upbeat variation of Pachelbel’s Canon in C on an exquisite paua-inlayed ukulele that she made with the help of a YouTube video. To her right is the Whangārei Heads home where she has lived with her partner and three sons for twelve years; to her left is a house truck named Rosa – an art project-cum-mobile home that Trisha built herself and has travelled the country in for the past two-and-a-half years.
Like so many elements of her current life, the uke and the house truck are the result of a decision Trisha made to not limit herself. But the freedom of spirit she exhibits hasn’t always been her modus operandi. Subconscious fear, ingrained self-doubt and the imprints of childhood embarrassment are things she has learned to identify and let go of, allowing her to live her best life – in a very literal sense.
Well-known in her current incarnation as a master stone-carver, Trisha, 65, has worn many hats in her time. She wrote for NZ Growing Today and NZ Farmer magazines, and she is the author of the books Practical Smallfarming in New Zealand and Practical Organics for New Zealand Farmers. She spent 30-odd years farming in the Hokianga, and she is an active member of the Whangārei Arts Trail.
While this suggests a wealth of self-confidence, it was only in the past ten years that Trisha let go of some long-held fears and trepidations and evolved into the woman she wanted to be. “It took me until I was fifty-five to realise it was me who was stopping myself,” Trisha says.
Nowadays, with house truck Rosa, her little dog Ruby, and her pushbike, Trisha travels the country in the tourism off-season, spending months at a time on the road. Living like this gives her a sense of freedom. "It's just out the gate and go. I have a rough idea of where I'll get to, but nothing is planned."
She carries enough food for a week, and stops at campsites and garages along the way. "Truck living is easier. You don't have to walk five miles to put the jug on. You just swing out of bed." But there's still room for a yoga mat on the floor, and places for guests to sit and have a cup of tea.
"I've never felt confined," Trisha says. "I did a South Island trip for five months last winter, and I went up north for two months this year. I've got a three-month trip planned around East Cape for next season." During summer, Trisha avoids the crowds in popular places; she stays at home in Whangārei Heads and works as a sculptor.
Adventure is in Trisha's blood: after the Second World War, her parents decided to emigrate from England to New Zealand but couldn't secure a passage on a ship. They found a thirty-four foot sailing boat and made the journey themselves, with no sailing experience between them, dodging hurricane seasons across the world for two years. In a similar vein, her great-grandmother on her father's side of the family travelled to Saudi Arabia and Mongolia at a time when only the very bravest women visited such places. Though they never met, Trisha feels a soul connection. The travelling foremother was called Rosa, and Trisha's beloved house truck is named after her.
Rosa is a cosy yet spacious dwelling that can sleep up to three people. She is both a work of art and practical accommodation boasting a double-bed sleeping loft, wet-room with composting toilet, and a kitchen and lounge area with stable doors that expand the space when open and let in the light. Trish found, by happy accident, that her pushbike fits perfectly inside while in transit, still leaving enough space to move about in the lounge.
Rosa started life as a flat-deck Nissan Atlas truck that Trisha stripped and rebuilt her at the family home. "At first I didn't have a bloody clue what I was doing - I was terrified," she says. But over eight months, and essentially on her own, she turned the Nissan Atlas into a mobile home that fits neatly into a supermarket carpark. "Every day, I did one thing on the truck. Once I was underway, it was really fun.
"Some people plan things to the nth degree," Trisha says. "My artwork always seems to evolve quite organically. I have trouble visualising stuff, and my cabinetmaking is terrible." But as an artist, a practical DIYer and a woman who had found the key to unlocking her self-imposed shackles, Trish was able to create her dream mobile home.
Rosa is every bit the work of art, from her lime green lintel to her carved wooden bike stand. "I started with that," Trisha says, pointing out an antique light fitting on the wall above the bench seat in the lounge. "I found it in an op-shop in Bluff, and decided to build the truck around it, make it olde-worlde."
Trisha's artistic journey began in childhood. "My mother was a very artistic person, she loved gardening and painting. We were always allowed to make creative mess as long as we cleared the dining table by dinner time. Once I was with my partner Alan and we had the kids and the farm, I didn't do any art. But then in my mid-40s I realised that the person who was stopping me was me." As Trisha explains, we tend to blame others or our circumstances for our lack of time or freedom to pursue our dreams, but in reality, we all stop ourselves.
"As kids," Trisha says, "we often take on a persona, and that's what we become as a way of coping - the quiet girl; the class clown. I remember being four and, mimicking my older sister who was a ballet dancer, I did an arabesque and farted. Everybody laughed. I was embarrassed and it curtailed my creativity. Once you become aware of what's stopping you, you can change that."
Having made up her mind to stop stopping herself, Trisha enrolled in art classes in Kerikeri. "You make a decision - I'm going to art class. I'm still going to look after my kids and be good to my husband, but I'm going to art class. I had to train everyone - no, I can't drench calves on Monday, that's my art day. We can do it Tuesday."
Encouraged and supported by her family, Trisha also enrolled with the Learning Connexion in Wellington and studied sculpture, painting and photography via correspondence. Her kids loved it. "They were my greatest critics. They'd come running up to see what I was working on. I knew if they said it was cool, it was cool."
Though she started painting with oils and has produced stunning works on canvas, Trisha's true calling has been sculpture. Farming gave her the skills with chainsaws and sanders, grinders and axes to delve into wood carving, but working with stone, in her own words, is the natural evolution of a sculptor.
"Stone has a mauri, a quality within it. It tells you what it wants to become. All the stone carvers I know are very humble people. They understand that they are an agent of transformation. They're not out there going, 'Look what I did'.''
Only a few small sculptures are on display at Trisha's home: everything else has sold or is on loan to galleries. Two exquisite pieces, Set Them Free and The Art Critic, sold at Sculpture Northland 2022; and Tipua (meaning new growth of the kūmara vine) won the 2022 Lake House Arts Sculpture Virtual Symposium and is set to be displayed in front of the new Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei.
Whilst being mobile gives Trisha the freedom to be the free-wheeling artist in the gypsy truck, retaining her home-base at Whangārei Heads gives her the foundation from which to create her art, be mother to her adult sons when they venture home and a partner to her husband. She has found the critical balance that so many are seeking, embodied in a house truck named Rosa.
This story is part of THREAD, a year-long project by Shepherdess made possible thanks to the Public Interest Journalism Fund through NZ On Air.
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