With decades of experience, our highly qualified team are a well-oiled machine. Our artists will create beautiful responses to any brief. They know exactly how to make stunning and engaging art, on time and within your budget.
Whatever you’re looking for, you can trust that we’ll put exactly the right people in place to make the magic happen.
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!
Instagram: @fran.makesart
Bee Jasko
Lead Artist and Project Manager
Bee is a creative upcycler and freelance community artist with a background in youth and community work. She has been working with Handmade Parade since 2015 and brings a particular passion in facilitating creative outreach workshops to enable those who may otherwise struggle to participate in our work, to contribute their artistry to our events and site art.
Instagram: @rehash_panache
Sue Walpole
Lead Artist and Project Manager
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.
Instagram: @suewalpole_
Sandra McCracken
Lead Artist & Project Manager
Sandra is a freelance visual artist and co-director of theatre arts company Eye of Newt. 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.
Instagram: @sandramccrackenstudio
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.
Instagram: @govi.asano
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.
Instagram: @lausuttas
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 with collective Full Stilt or creating street theatre magic as co-director of theatre arts company Eye of Newt.
Instagram: @rowanclairetaylor