Elk County Council on the Arts and Community Education Center of Elk and Cameron Counties are partnering with John Schlimm to launch his latest community art project titled THE SMILE ZINE: Art and smiles should be accessible to everyone.
Produced as both an e-zine and a printed edition of 1,000 free copies, THE SMILE ZINE is an 80-page black-and-white zine that uses the simple image and reference point of a human smile to draw attention to the very timely importance and meaning of art and mental health, as well as the accessibility, exploration, reflection, and intersection of both. And each cover has a colorful smile individually hand-inked by John.
Short for magazine or fanzine, a zine is a small-circulation collection of images, text, and other artwork that traditionally is handmade and reproduced via photocopier by one person or group around one theme or cause, such as “Art and smiles should be accessible to everyone.”
In the tradition of artists like Keith Haring and the riot grrrl movement and more recently Austin Kleon, Ben Watts, and Jonas Brothers, as well as outsider creatives active in the 70’s and 80’s punk and activist scenes in LA and NYC, each page of THE SMILE ZINE visually explores these concepts of art and mental health through mixed-media collages and montages of words, images, drawings, interactive questions, and more. John both created new pieces exclusively for this work and also appropriated other components from his vast archive of original sketchbooks, books, and other works, along with letters and words clipped from magazines, newspapers, and other sources, and reassembled them.
“As an artist and mental health advocate, THE SMILE ZINE is a visual, fun, and engaging way for me to convey the message that art and mental well-being should be available to everyone,” John Schlimm said. “It gives the viewer of any age countless entry points for exploring and reflecting on this message, and then deciding what it means to them personally.”
Next up for John will be the release of The Brain Zine: How often do you think about your brain?, which is launching nationwide in May in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month.
Printed copies of THE SMILE ZINE are free and can be picked-up at the ECCOTA Gallery in Ridgway, PA, and the CEC in St. Marys, PA, while supplies last. Copies will also be given to every student who is participating in The Gen-Z Community Service Summit at Ridgway Middle-High School on April 20. Additionally, the e-zine edition can be downloaded for free at JohnSchlimm.com.
In addition to ECCOTA and CEC as partners on this project, funding for THE SMILE ZINE was made possible by ECCOTA’s Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator Program grant via Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a grant from Ridgway Borough Charitable Fund held at the Elk County Community Foundation. The printing of THE SMILE ZINE was facilitated locally at Printing Plus in St. Marys.