Team

LPW Team

Kate Da’Casto
Education Manager
k.dacasto@leicesterprintworkshop.com

Having worked with LPW since 2010 as a volunteer, tutor, fundraiser and Artist in Residence, Kate joined the LPW team in 2016 as a Studio Worker and became Education Programme Manager in 2020, designing courses and bespoke educational offers for a wide variety of groups and individuals.

Graduating from her Fine Art degree at DMU in 2010 with a first, Kate won the Printmakers Council Student Award, the Embrace Arts at the University of Leicester Mentoring Prize and Leicester Print Workshop’s Degree Show Prize. Her art practice spans etching, monoprint, textile art and surface embellishment, photography, assemblage, collage, book making and sculpture.

Obsessed by fragmentary moments, lost objects and the processes of human growth and decay, she has a peculiar amount of Very Strange Things in her home studio and will always be loyal to following her weirdness.

Katy Goodrich
Studio Technician
katy.goodrich@leicesterprintworkshop.com

A part of the studio team, Katy has been involved with the studio for the last 15 years. Starting as a volunteer, she then undertook a 5 year apprenticeship at LPW learning all aspects of print. Katy's our screenprinting whizz and became a technician in 2020. Katy also teaches on the course programme, in schools and with community groups.

Sarah Kirby
Cleaner

Sarah ’s introduction to Printmaking and Print Workshops was with Walter Hoyle at Cambridge College of Arts. She then did a degree in Fine Art at West Surrey College of Art and Design, followed by an MA in Museum and Gallery Studies. A few years after working in Local authority Museums she did an MA in Fine art at Nottingham Trent University which led swiftly to taking up the job of PrintWorker/Manager at Leicester Print Workshop from 1993 - 98.Since then Sarah has been employed as technician, framer, gardener and freelance tutor and now works as the organisation’s cleaner.

Kezia Kneller
Operations Manager
k.kneller@leicesterprintworkshop.com

Robyn Maclennan
Studio Technician
robyn.maclennan@leicesterprintworkshop.com

Robyn joined Leicester Print Workshop as part of the technician team at the end of 2021, specialising in etching and photographic techniques. She uses multiple printmaking and photography processes to explore the landscape and our connections to it. Robyn holds an MA in Fine Art and is currently undertaking a PhD at London College of Communication where she is researching how ecoGothic theory can be used to re-examine our relationship with nature and how fear has permeated our perceptions of the non-human world. She is particularly interested in the links between the darkness found in the ecoGothic and the necessity of darkness to her photography and printmaking practice as well as how understanding the agency of both the natural world and the works she produces can grant us a better understanding of the world around us.

Serena Smith
Studio Technician
s.smith@leicesterprintworkshop.com

As part of the studio team, Serena Smith supports the creative journeys of our members and wider community. In partnership with the workshop she established the Lithography Fellowship programme, and continues to oversee the development of Leicester Print Workshop as a well-supported facility for artists to learn this artisan practice. Internationally recognised in the field of fine art lithography, alongside her own studio practice, writing and research, she continues to teach workshops, and offer bespoke tuition and technical support in lithography. Information about her projects and activities can be found on her website: serenasmith.org

LPW Board of Trustees

Teresa Budworth

Chair of Trustees since August 2024. Teresa is a Chartered Director and an experienced charity trustee and Chief Executive, having run NEBOSH – a regulated qualification awarding body for 12 years. Most recently, she combined chairing the board of trustees of the National Fire Chiefs’ Council with studying for a degree in Fine Art at Loughborough University, graduating in 2024. She is currently undertaking a year-long course at Leicester Print Workshop to develop her printmaking skills.

Dr Tonia Lu

Tonia Lu is a curator and experienced mentor and advisor for artists. Having studied in Leicester and worked in Scotland and Northern England, she is currently based in Cornwall. In the last 7 years she has worked as a visual art and craft specialist mentor and advisor on public-funded programmes supporting over 200 organisations, businesses and individuals in Cornwall, in aspects of planning, marketing, finance and income generation. And in 2023, she set up and produced Cornwall’s newest visual art festival Flamm, providing more opportunities for artists as well as benefiting deprived communities in Cornwall. She is currently the Director of Creative Enterprise at Creative Kernow – also an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation, like LPW. Tonia has been a long-standing admirer and collector of prints and started House of Prints in 2020.

Kate Hodges

After graduating from a fashion and textile design degree at Leicester Polytechnic Kate, was a joint founder and director of a knitwear design and supply company in the city. Since leaving the company and developing her art practice she has also worked as an administrator for the Friends of the University of Leicester botanic garden, ran session work in Leicester City Council Neighbourhood centres and the adult education centre in gardening and textile skills, 5 and had the privilege of being a befriending co-ordinator for a charity supporting young autistic adults. In 2007 Kate joined the Friends of the University of Leicester Botanic Garden committee eventually serving as Chair 2014-17. Kate has been a member of Leicester print workshop since May 2017 where she has developed her practice in printmaking, particularly photolithography.

Michelle Kambasha

Michelle Kambasha is a communications and public relations executive with 12 years of experience, running her own company, kp. communications. Her work spans various industries, supporting organisations such as Sony, Platoon, PIAS, The Black Curriculum, and the Music Education Council—an organisation committed to diversifying music education to include more people from the global majority and disabled people. Previously, she worked for the leading independent record label Secretly Group (Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar, and Secretly Canadian) and the entertainment agency Satellite 414. In addition to her work in communications, Michelle is active in journalism, education, and public speaking. She contributes regularly to major publications, with bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The i, The Independent, and WePresent. At BIMM University, she teaches the module Diversity in the Creative Industries and frequently hosts, chairs, and participates in panels nationally and internationally. Michelle also serves as a mentorship coordinator for the youth-focused creative organisation Creative Opps and holds a trustee position at Working Class Creatives Database.

Jean McMeakin

Jean has held both operational and strategic roles in a number of large and small organisations in the commercial and not-for-profit screen sectors. Before her last full-time role on a Divisional Board in the BBC, she worked in many areas of the BBC, including Global News and Television Production. As well as general management, Jean has specialisms in HR and talent development, performance management, OD, and have delivered large scale business restructuring programmes with productivity improvements and significant cost savings. Jean is a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the De Morgan Foundation Trustee Board, and a Trustee of Bankside Open Spaces Trust. She sits on the British Museum Friends Advisory Council, and Dulwich Picture Gallery Friends Advisory Panel. As well as her interests in the arts generally Jean is an amateur etcher, and attend Putney Art School in London, where she lives, to study etching in all its forms. 6 Catherine Louch Catherine’s full-time role is Associate Director of Business partnerships at Warwick University. She has a strong background in business development, managing strategic relationships and delivery of large scale, multi-stakeholder projects, predominantly within the higher education and charity sectors. She is an experienced charity trustee, previously holding board positions in arts organisations.

Sylvia Wright

With over 43 years’ experience of working within the arts, and one of the founder members of Leicester Print Workshop (LPW), Sylvia was until recently Head of Leisure and Culture at Charnwood Borough Council, and prior to this Head of Arts at Leicester City Council. After gaining a first-class degree in Fine Art at Leicester Polytechnic, Sylvia spent her first 10 years working as an artist and with artists to make the arts more accessible. She was an active Board Member and later Chair of LPW, a Board Member for Arts Councils (East Midlands Board) and a Membership Secretary for the National Arts Association, and managed Leicestershire Art week for a number of years. Following this, Sylvia worked as a senior manager in local government for 33 years. Starting off with the development of The City Gallery, a contemporary arts venue, she successfully secured revenue and capital funding from the Arts Council and the Crafts Council. While Head of Arts for Leicester she was responsible for a wide range of major art venues, art projects, art organisations, festivals, and events while contributing to the development of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter, including the mobilisation and management of Leicester’s creative hub for businesses and creatives, LCB Depot. Cultural Regeneration has been a central theme to Sylvia’s career and when she took up a Head of Service position in Loughborough, as well as having responsibility for the Arts, Tourism, Leisure and Heritage, Sylvia was actively involved in Town Centre management the development of a Business Improvement District, Loughborough BID, and the delivery of a number of regeneration projects. Prior to leaving Charnwood Sylvia worked with the regeneration team to successfully secure Town Deal monies to support a number of projects, including Loughborough’s Bell Foundry, The Great Central Railway and the Generator, a new arts venue. Sylvia now combines trusteeship at Leicester Print Workshop with acting as advisor on significant arts projects, and her own practice.