Rangiora Artist Caroline Trevella

Neither a car nor boat takes up space in Canadian-Kiwi artist Caroline Trevella’s suburban double garage. On any ordinary day, you’re more likely to fi nd monsters, masks, props and puppets parked there. This is the Rangiora workshop of Caroline’s company Bizzart, perhaps best known as the creative force behind Ballantynes’ Christmas window displays.

But after eight years of designing and creating Ballantynes’ beloved festive season characters, Caroline has decided to move on to new projects.

Her latest works-in-progress include a trio of giant Christmas angels for Christchurch Cathedral – dubbed ‘The Archangels: Gabriel, Michael and Raphael’ – and a towering kiwi with baby bird in tow. The latter will be used at the West Coast Wildlife Centre – a new attraction at Franz Josef to help promote a breeding and incubation programme for New Zealand’s rarest kiwi, the Rowi. This new attraction is due to open in early November and is being run in partnership with the Department of Conservation.

“I’m on a tight schedule for the Kiwi – I think I’ll be putting in a few all-nighters on it!” laughs Caroline, who this month was also preparing to fl y out to the United States to spend some time with her American fi ancé, Mike.

The two met at “a fly-in” at Motueka 18 months ago. Caroline is herself an experienced pilot who, as a young woman, gained her commercial pilot’s licence in Canada. She still regularly flies out of Rangiora Airfi eld as a member of the Canterbury Recreational Aircraft Club. Caroline has two daughters by her fi rst marriage – Jessie, 22 and Carly, 21 – who enjoy helping out at Bizzart. Carly is completing a Bachelor of Art and Design at Christchurch Polytechnic, while Jessica is studying biology at Canterbury University.

The family fi rst moved to New Zealand from Canada 15 years ago. Prior to emigrating, Caroline had been making a living from doing puppet shows for private parties, schools and corporate functions, but then found the New Zealand market too small to continue the shows.

Instead, she found work making interactive art for children at the Christchurch Arts Centre, as well as creating wearable puppet theatre (making the fi nals of the World of Wearable Arts), marionettes, sculptures and props. Children across the nation savoured the costumes she created for the TV show ‘What Now’.

All her projects start as visual ideas, which are then carefully sketched out until ultimately being rendered in threedimensional form. “Someone once asked me ‘why do you make these things?’ It’s because I want to look at them. I want to be able to touch them and see them,” she says.

Helping Caroline to bring her creative ideas to life are fellow artistic travellers, including animator Grant Loader and costumer Fran Gardner. “I couldn’t have achieved as much as I have without Grant and Fran.”

Her trio of fi breglass angels is destined to hang in Christchurch Cathedral from late November, as part of the cathedral’s Christmas season display. Caroline has already been up into the cathedral’s rafters in a cherry picker to make sure the angels can be safely secured. “It was quite funny, because they were saying to me ‘are you sure you’ll be okay going up there?’ Hey, I’m a microlight pilot, so it really wasn’t a problem at all!

“I’m over the moon that my work will be going there – the cathedral is an incredible building and so inspiring. It’s an honour to be a part of it.”

Caroline landed the big kiwi commission as a result of an earlier project: a large emperor penguin sculpture for the International Antarctic Centre. The centre’s director Richard Benton loved it so much that he could think of no one better to provide an iconic kiwi for the new West Coast Wildlife Centre in Franz Josef. Words: Kim Newth

“I’m over the moon that my work will be going there – the cathedral is an incredible building and so inspiring. It’s an honour to be a part of it.”