Farewell EMMA, Hello CARLY

Hello SAW community! We have some changes here in admin that we want to share with everyone.

A lot of you know Emma Jensen. She is fabulously talented, hilarious, and best of all, my best friend! My beautiful friend has decided to move back to her home country, Australia, and leave the mantle of SAW’s assistant director open. Tom reached out to me, Carly, to take over and continue the incredible work that Emma established.

In Tom’s words: “It's not an underestimation to say that SAW probably wouldn't still exist if it weren't for Emma. I'm so grateful for her co-stewardship from 2018 on.

Emma co-designed most of what we're doing here, from long-term projects and courses to short courses to publications to workflows to volunteer experiences etc to local programming, etc.

She was the moral center in the successful building of our somewhat stable non-profit.

Her immense wisdom and courage will be put to great use somewhere, that's for sure. And I'll miss her greatly.”

It is difficult to describe how much I miss Emma. We lived about 3 minutes away from each other here in Gainesville and happened to work in the same facility for about a year and a half. SAW studio is situated within the Gainesville Fine Arts Association Gallery, where I was the Operations Assistant! Luckily, I speak to her every Monday night (her Tuesday morning).

Emma is the one who encouraged me to go for my MFA in Comics at California College of the Arts. She’s also the one that taught me to how to be obsessed with orange pekoe tea, Lidia Yuknavitch, ginger chicken meatballs, diving into head springs, and literally so much more I cannot list it all.

So, I’m here to take over and try and do the best I can for SAW, building off what Emma tirelessly worked to create. Comment below and tell me some stuff you’d love to see at SAW! I’m here to facilitate :-)