Iowa City artist to launch new magazine

IOWA CITY — After a year of considering the possibility, an Iowa City resident said he has decided to branch out from his typical videography work and create a magazine set to launch in early May.

Created by Jason Levi Smith, LINT Magazine was created through a collaboration of artists across multiple mediums. Not only will the launch release a magazine, the event will feature other creations from the collaboration, including paintings, a movie and a dress made out of painted fabric.

Smith, videographer and housekeeper at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, said the magazine features several emerging artists — all of whom are based in Iowa, except for an artist in Paris, France.

Among the collaborating artists was JoAnn Larpenter-Sinclair, a hair and makeup artist for the magazine who also works at HABA Salon in Iowa City.

The magazine, as well as other creative aspects of it, will be launched during Flyover Fashion Fest at 7:15 p.m. May 6 at RADinc, the retail, art and design incubator at 123 E. Washington St. in downtown Iowa City.

Q: What is LINT Magazine?

Smith: LINT Magazine is a photo-, video-driven style magazine focusing on integrating artists — so there's photographers, there's hairstylists, video artists. It's more of a focus on the artist and the creations themselves. There's no sponsors at this time, so it's a little more organic. It's just me making a magazine of things that I think look good and includes all of my creative friends, so I wanted to put that into a magazine.

Q: Does the magazine have a specific theme or focus?

Smith: I would say style and fashion.

Larpenter-Sinclair: Self-expression.

Q: When did you first get the idea to do the magazine?

Smith: I probably got the idea a year ago when I was working on a similar style shoot with multiple photographers. I was like 'I love all of these photos, where are they going to go?' Multiple times people brought up that we should make a magazine out of one shoot. To me, it seemed a little forced but I liked the idea. I kept thinking about it, and eventually just decided to do it.

Q: I understand this is a collaboration among several different types of artists. Was that the goal?

Smith: It really was. That's one of the biggest goals, which is just exposure to other local artists.

Q: What major outcome are you hoping for?

Smith: In the long term, I say I want to release this magazine and I want to hear such a positive response that I want to make a second or a third magazine. That would be very ideal.

Larpenter-Sinclair: If I had a goal for what we were doing, I'd say just that we have more people come in and that there's more opportunities to make really cool stuff, because that's always what my goal is — to have the means in some form or to have the resources to be able to make more art.

Q: If someone was interested in getting this magazine, how would they go about doing that?

Smith: They would have to go to the show on May 6. Outside of that, I would always be able to be contacted via my email, jmailjason1@gmail.com.

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