Clare Danon

Director and Creative Producer

Clare is an experienced Creative Producer with a passion for making art happen in outdoor spaces, often in unusual places and with communities at the heart of the work. She honed her skills with leading outdoor art experts Walk the Plank for many years and is now enjoying working with the highly creative team of artists at Handmade Productions.

Fran Sierevogel

Lead Artist and Project Manager

Fran has been leading communities to make amazing art for over 25 years. She’s been with Handmade from the very beginning and works as a lead artist and project manager.

Fran is equally at home running large scale events and parades or delivering workshops. She has even been the face of Handmade Productions on Blue Peter on more than one occasion!

Sandra McCracken

Lead Artist & Social Media

Sandra is a freelance visual artist, she’s passionate about inspiring others through creative experiences and has been working in the arts for over 25 years, originally as a qualified teacher of art and design. Sandra loves working with clay, papier-mâché and paint. Most of her making work is designed for outdoor events, so she quite enjoys a nice sit-down illustration job for a change, especially in the winter.

“Sandra is a freelance visual artist.”

Govi Asano

Lead Artist

Govi started her career as a giant lantern puppet maker with Handmade Productions in 2018. She works as a freelance community artist, based in West Yorkshire. Govi enjoys using traditional lantern-building techniques and loves to find beautiful lines when bending withies. She’s recently been exploring batik and other textile processes and is keen to use these skills more in her puppet builds.

Laura Sutcliffe-Tasker

Lead Artist

Laura is a freelance artist, based in West Yorkshire. She’s an experienced puppet and lantern maker, with a particular flair for surface pattern design. Her workshops are always beautifully organised, she enjoys designing fun and accessible activities.

Rowan Taylor

Lead Artist

Rowan is a freelance artist specialising in carnival and based in Manchester. She comes from a textiles background but has fallen in love with creating large structures and puppets. She loves adding silliness and performance to her work and can often be found creating stilt work.

“…She loves adding silliness and performance to her work and can often be found creating stilt work or creating street theatre magic.”

Ru Brooks

Freelance Admin & Project Coordinator

Ru works part-time with Handmade’s core team, supporting with admin, reporting and evaluation processes. He is passionate about connecting people through shared creative experiences, bringing expertise from his work and collaborations with ambitious arts charities, outdoor arts organisations and green field festivals (Walk the Plank; DOCA; Creative Youth Network; Many Minds; Glastonbury Festival; Shambala; Boomtown).

Andrew Kim

Associate Artist

Andrew is a puppet maker, performer, director and teacher. He is co-director of Thingumajig Theatre who specialise in giant puppets, lantern puppets and street theatre puppet plays. He is the founder and former director of the Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade which was inspired by his work in the USA with Minneapolis’ MayDay Parade and Seattle’s Summer Solstice Parade as well as the legacy of Welfare State International. Andrew has performed and taught giant puppets throughout the UK, Europe, the USA, Korea and India.

Brian Acton

Associate Artist

Brian is a musician, composer and educator from Belfast. He’s been in Calderdale for over 20 years, and has been involved with Handmade Parade in various ways over that time. Most recently, he has dedicated himself to development of a sound system dedicated to outdoor work, especially useful in parades. Brian also plays guitar in our community Fantasy Orchestra, and plays traditional Irish banjo.

David Insua-Cao

Associate Artist

David is a Todmorden–based percussionist, artist and facilitator working across music, theatre and community practice. He has toured internationally with 1927 Theatre and Giffords Circus, and regularly performs with Mr Wilson’s Second Liners and other ensembles. He founded the Calderdale Fantasy Orchestra, bringing people together to make joyful noise, shared rhythm and imaginative, inclusive music in unexpected places.

Gil Burns

Associate Artist

Gil has worked with Handmade since 2011 in various roles including choreographer, performer and project coordinator. You may have seen her crazy dance performers who have been featured in parades since 2015. Gil’s career, working freelance with many different companies since 2002, has led to a passion for performing and creating accessible work for outdoor and indoor settings using dance, comedy and circus!

Sue Walpole

Lead Artist

Sue is passionate about creating art in Community, the joys and well-being it brings, the amazing results that we can create together. She has a myriad of experience as a solid part of our team since the early days, creating lantern puppets and delivering projects involving all aspects big and small, both in the UK and Internationally.