Art-O-Mat
If you haven’t heard of it, Art-O-Mat is the brainchild of artist Clark Whittington, who converts old cigarette machines to vend art. According to the Art-O-Mat website, Whittington came up with the idea “while observing a friend who had a Pavlovian reaction to the crinkle of cellophane. When Whittington’s friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too.” Whittington set up the first Art-O-Mat vending machine in conjunction with his solo art show in June of 1997 at a local cafe, Penny Universitie. The first machine sold his photograps for $1.00 each. After the show, the cafe owner loved it and asked that the machine stay.
Art-O-Mat now has 82 machines throughout the US, and one in Surrey, England. You could be a contributing artist. Find out details here: http://www.artomat.org/guidelines.html
As I said, I had forgotten all about this cool, innovative idea, and as I was browsing online, Charley Parker at Lines and Colors reminded me about it with this post:
You can see the Art-O-Mat website here:www.artomat.org
