Help SAW in 2013

Hello from the Sequential Artists Workshop, or SAW. A couple years ago we had the crazy idea to open a school; an informal, but serious school, with a curriculum to match any anywhere, but without the baggage, the loans or the politics of higher education. This was the challenge. To create an outpost of support and learning in the comics world.

We’re here to educate students and support artists. And we’re asking for your help to make this upcoming year as amazing as our past year.

View our entire history here: http://sequentialartistsworkshop.org/wordpress/about/our-history/

We’ve taught comics to youth, adults, newcomers, to visiting students, and to artists and writers in other fields. And we’re proud of the amazing education we’re offering to our current full-year students, who are getting an excellent, full-time, intensive education in drawing, writing, reading, applied media, experimental projects and all things sequential art.

You can see our success from our testimonials:

“I’d say I left SAW feeling like I got so much more than I expected or understood I would get. I got a deep, personally catered fine art education in the fundamentals that can push my own work and style forward.” - Jared Cullum, http://www.hausohubris.com/?p=390

Best workshop I have ever participated in, hands down. I learned as a writer, a cartoonist, and as a teacher. …If you have any chance to participate in any of the various workshops, classes, or year-long studies at the Sequential Artists Workshop, you must! Tom Hart and Leela Corman have something special going on down there – as good a workshop as I’ve ever been involved with. - Justin Colussy-Estes

Your school and curriculum are fantastic…I honestly feel far more capable of writing something worth reading after a few classes … Also, Justine being so harsh is perfect. She actually teaches and builds on ideas. – Mike K, Philladelphia

How I know a week at @comicsworkshop did its job: I wake up every morning unconcerned with email, burning to draw & write. – Deanna, NYC

You can see more here: http://sequentialartistsworkshop.org/wordpress/about/testimonials/

We’ve hosted more than a dozen art shows and book releases, highlighting the work of great, often underexposed artists like Tom Galambos, Derek Ballard, Caroline Paquita, Justine Mara Andersen, Andre Frattino and more.

Here’s a run down of our list of shows and events: http://sequentialartistsworkshop.org/wordpress/category/events/

We’re building the connections that artists need to thrive. We fostering creativity and talent in our students, and we’re taking on the challenge of connecting our artists and students to the Gainesville community, and into the larger community of comics artists.

We applied for a State of Florida Humanities Grant to document some of Florida’s amazing histories and folklore and are researching further into making this book a reality.

We’ve given TWO grants to comics creators, Jess Ruliffsson and Julia Gfrörer, with plans for six more.

We earned grants from a local community organization to furnish SAW and from the City of Gainesville to support a local fan convention.

We partnered with the Department of Defense to create a comics portal for returning veterans.

We teamed up with Departments of the University of Florida as well as the Harn Art Musuem and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

We’re currently working with Jenny Zervakis and John Porcellino to publish an omnibus of Jenny’s Strange Growths.

HELP OUR MISSION TO SUPPORT AND NURTURE COMICS ARTISTS

To do this, we’re asking for your help. Donations, to keep our lights on, to pay our evil landlord (super evil!), to keep our Risograph running. Every donation matters and helps as does every click to help spread the word . No effort is too small.

Your donations are tax-deductible though Fractured Atlas (until our own 501(c)3 status is finalized.)

Many of our gifts are of limited or single quantity, so we are asking that you read the below, then visit our Etsy store to make your final choice. Put your specific requests in the comments field, or email us at thesaw@sequentialartistsworkshop.org 

We will be filing thank yous on a ROLLING BASIS so if you want something by Christmas or mailed to someone else, let us know and we will do it. We have outstanding interns waiting to package your prints and posters!

Gifts from Derek Ballard, John Porcellino, Vanessa Davis, Michael DeForge, Dash Shaw, Eleanor Davis and more!

Some benchmarks and rewards for you:

$10 will help us print some more postcards and fliers. For this you’ll receive the below 5 x 7 postcard by Michael DeForge.

$25 will go to our fund for more art supplies. For this, we’ll send you the above postcard plus any poster found on our Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SAWSupportStore/

$50 will go to repairs to our ceiling fan, or getting that hole closed in the closet. Grab a postcard and take either the John P $50 print or Michael DeForge 11x17 print, or 2 $25 posters from: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SAWSupportStore/

$100 will go to utilities. We’ve got lots of single drawings on Etsy for you at that donation amount. http://www.etsy.com/shop/SAWSupportStore/  Or take two prints or 4 posters!

$200 pays our rent for two weeks! We have lots of original art at our Etsy store for this donation amount: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SAWSupportStore/

$500 will help get another artist down here to recharge in the warm air while teaching our students. Contact us about a funding gift or combine from the Etsy Store. 

$1000 will blow our minds, help support all the artists and students both here at SAW and beyond, thank you. What can we reward you with? Name it, let us know!

Our $7500 total is a lowball description of what we need, and aimed towards only keeping the doors open through 2013. The more we manage to raise, the more everyone wins, especially the students and visiting artists of SAW. So please, if you can donate to support quality education, affordable access to skills and resources that support artists and engage students.

Thank you!

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POSTSCRIPT

To our previous benefactors from 2010, thank you for your support.

We received great donations of books from

• Kate Correa and Lisa Schwartzburg
• Phil Weiss
• Derik Badman
• Annie Koyama
• Tim Kreider
• Jed Alexander
• Top Shelf
• Lou Copeland
• Dan Boyd
• Wow Cool

Furniture and supply donations from

• University of Florida SA+AH
• Central Florida Office Plus
• Bill Bryson
• Joe Courter and The Civic Media Center
• The Citizen’s Co-Op
• Satchel’s Pizza
• Chris Fillie
• Tomis Aycok
• Pete Mejija
• Sam Manno

Art Donations from:

• Vanessa Davis
• Trevor Alixopulos
• John Porcellino
• Nick Abadzis
• Jason Little
• Nick Bertozzi
• Sarah Glidden
• Alex Jansen
• Ed Kanerva
• Dash Shaw
• Megan Kelso
• Steve Weissman
• Sam Henderson
• Josh Bayer
• Jed Alexander
• Eleanor Davis
• Michael DeForge
• Drew Weing
• Tim Kreider
• 
  
  

Are we probably forgetting YOUR in-kind donations from 2012? Please realize this is temporary, and we will remember your specific efforts to support us, bang our hands into our heads and say “duh!” Then we will update this page. Please know your donations and efforts have all been graciously appreciated by the staff and students here at SAW, thank you! Feel free to contact us about a receipt, since the end of the year is upon us and our non-profit status is imminent.

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Thanks for your support, or order or whatever! Please know that you are ON THE SIDE OF GOOD.