Our 2024-2025 Teaching Fellows

Nov 12

We’re excited to welcome the following 4 artists to our Teaching Fellowship program for 2024-2025. Fellows will work together to develop curricula for SAW as well as their own communities. Look for more from them in the months to come. Find more info on the Fellowship Program HERE.

The SAW Teaching Fellowship Program was begun by Director Emerita Emma Jensen in 2023 and supported Adrean Clark and Remeina Yee in their pedagogical explorations in format and form. 2024 sees a co-hort based fellowship dedicated to mutual support and dialogue in the service of our broader communities.

The Fellows

Anna Sellheim

is originally from Washington DC. She earned her MFA in comics from the Center For Cartoon Studies in 2016. She has been published by the Nib, Oni Press and Seven Days (Vermont’s Alternative Weekly Newspaper). She also has contributed to a number of anthologies, most notably Dirty Diamonds and Comics For Choice, an anthology of nonfiction comics about abortion that raised over $30,000 for the National Network Abortion Fund. Her work primarily deals with health, trauma, and the healing power of art.

She now works at the Refugee Youth Program, where she teaches art and comics to refugee youth ages 5-21 throughout Baltimore City. She helps guide her students into creating their own healing art practices, while also using comics as an opportunity to solidify their English skills. One project of note, the RYP Zine, is an anthology created by her students at Patterson High School. The sales of the initial print run has raised over $1000 for the student snack fund.

Chelsea AkPan

Chelsea is a cartoonist with a penchant for bold colors, wild shapes and expressive characters. LOVEFOOL, her ongoing comic project brings together her love for telenovelas, romance and cartoon absurdity. Her other comic projects are avenues of experimentation in writing and style. She’s interested in tying classic humor and design with a contemporary approach.

Michael Aschner

Michael turned to making comics after a 37-year hiatus from visual art. During that time, he worked as an off-Broadway actor/playwright and a screenwriter/story editor for children’s animation. He completed SAW’s year-long program and six-month graphic novel intensive and studied comics with Summer Pierre and Josh Bayer. At SAW, he formed Sunday Open Studios, the bi-weekly Promptapalooza, and occasionally guest hosts the Friday Night Comics workshop.

His work has appeared in SAW anthologies and on seesawcomics.org.

Michael was one of 74 artists invited to reinterpret six notorious Christian comic booklets in Danny Hellman’s JACKED TRACTS. He lives in New Jersey with his artist partner Angie and their obnoxious little dog Fruit Bat.