Who We Are

Programme Co-Director

Iain has an extensive background working in the arts and education sector. Iain was part of the original organisation delivering the Creative Partnerships programme working with schools in Stoke and Staffordshire since 2007. Iain has worked on a variety of projects in a freelance capacity including the British Ceramics Biennial and Pocket Film Festival. He also has his own creative practice as a printmaker and collage artist.

iain@picl.uk.com

Operations Manager

Sarah has over twenty years experience in creative production, large scale festival and events management, public realm installations and creative operational management for a varied range of arts organisations. She is a partner in participatory arts organisation Letting in the Light and a freelance Arts and Heritage consultant and believes that having access to creative opportunities should be accessible to all.

Non-Executive Director and Co-Chair

Erica started working for Creative Partnerships in Stoke on Trent in 2005 as Finance and Operations Manager which later became Partners in Creative Learning. Erica became Executive Director of PiCL in 2012, developing and delivering a range of programmes funded through Children in Need, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Open Society Foundation, NHLF and many more. During this time she has sat on the consortium for Appetite and was Appetite Director for maternity cover in 2019. She left her executive role to join Culture Central in 2019 as their Chief Executive, but has remained an non-exec director. Erica believes in the value of Culture to change people and places for the better and from experience knows the positive impact it has on young people.

Co-Chair

Co-Chair

Helen is a currently Secondary Head of Photography, Art Teacher and Artist living in Stoke on Trent with over 20 years experience working within education in Stoke on Trent.

Helen through her own practice has explored working in many media including Silver, Clay, Photography, Print and more recently Willow. Her work has always drawn on pattern, shape and colour and often kitsch imagery. Currently she is currently exploring how to combine media in and of place. She is an avid gardener and she is also part of an artist collective called ‘Clay Comrades’ who work out of the British Ceramics Biennial studio at Spode Works.

Alongside being a Teacher and Artist Helen has extensive leadership skills gained through Senior Leadership within a Sixth Form College, Business Manager setting up an independant skills college, an Enterprise Advisor to a local School and a core group member since the founding of Stoke and North Staffordshire Cultural Education Partnership.

Youth Leadership and Youth Forum Lead

Kirsty is the director of Kreative Foundations, an alternative education and community development company based in Stoke-on-Trent. Their mission is to develop well-being and community engagement for learners of all ages and abilities through creative approaches. Kirsty is currently leading our Creative Youth Leaders and Youth Forum programme and will share information from our recent youth forums on environmental issues and what we can do as educators to reduce our impact.

https://www.kreativefoundations.co.uk/

Creative Evaluation Consultant

Kirsty Hillyer is a Creative Evaluator and Reseacher and has been involved in participatory arts for almost 20 years, both in the UK and abroad. She has worked with various groups, ranging from young children to adults with disabilities and older individuals with dementia. Her company We Are Frilly uses process-driven, creative exploration to take risks, make things with people, challenge organisations, share skills and knowledge, and ask questions! She brings creative methods to evaluation, which increases inclusion and accessibility so that people feel confident, willing, and able to share their opinions.

https://www.wearefrilly.com/

Sally Fitchard is an award-winning figurative sculptor based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. A graduate of Staffordshire Polytechnic she has remained true to her love of clay and representations of the human figure. Her inspirations are the nuances of our lives, our presence in them and how we all feel, played out through the subtleties of form, expression and gesture. Her sculptures are single and multi-piece works that play with scale, texture, and the raw materiality of clay (she rarely uses glaze) placing great value on the accessibility of the tactile and earthy qualities of her chosen material.

Website: www.sallyfitchard.com

Instagram: @sallyfitchard

Pinterest: Sally Fitchard Limited

Alice Thatcher is a ceramic artist working with clay and people in Stoke-on-Trent. Her practice focuses on community, clay, people and place. She believes in the connections we can make using ceramic processes and is passionate about engaging with others whilst using clay as a tool for conversation.

Instagram @alicethatchclay

Jenni Spangler is a children's author on purpose, and illustrator by accident. She creates spooky and funny middle grade books from a studio in the historic Spode pottery factory. When she's not making things, she runs confidence-building workshops to help people find their own creative voices. Her publications include The Vanishing Trick and Valentine Crow and Mr Death.

https://jennispangler.com

Instagram: @jenni_spangler

Rumbi is an illustrator based in Birmingham, UK.

She is currently working on a variety of commissions from editorial, children’s illustration, healthcare, and charities, and is also an alumni for the Pathways Into programme. She loves working with bold colours and has a very distinctive and bright style.

She spends the majority of her time drawing people, listening to music, and researching for her next exciting project.

www.marykeepsgoing.com

Instagram: @marykeepsgoing

Kat hughes is a producer and director from the border between stoke-on-trent and cheshire.

Kat has spent the last the last decade working with communities in the midlands and north west.

Kat has worked extensively as youth theatre director at the new vic theatre as well as co-founding her own company potboiler theatre. Some of kat’s biggest achievements have been when working with untrained young actors. Creating a piece of gig theatre, the sad club by luke barnes as part of national theatre connections for the new vic theatre and sheffield crucible studio has been a highlight.

Her interest is in work that brings people together to examine our contradictions and our similarities, that nourishes and provides new perspectives for an audience. She is interested in work that challenges our understanding of what is normal in a humorous and touching way.

https://www.kathughes.co.uk

twitter: @katherinehughe