Vending Machine Chronicles, part 1
Turn your spare change into art. No, really.
“People need art in their houses. They don’t need Bed Bath and Beyond dentist-office art. They need weird stuff.” —Ezra Croft
The first time I saw this quote, it wasn’t attributed, and then I had no idea who Ezra Croft was.1 But I agree with him. We need real art in our homes, stuff made by humans. Art that speaks to us in some visceral or nourishing way.
Original art can be expensive or otherwise unattainable — shit, we’re talking about feeding our souls here, people, that’s priceless! — but the high end of the art spectrum isn’t what I’m focused on today. Now, if you’re into itty bitty pieces, you have $5 in your pocket, and you like a low-stakes gamble… have I got the art-collecting mechanism for you! Art-o-mat vending machines.
Here’s how they work: You buy a special token for $5. You put that token into an old cigarette vending machine that’s been loaded with tiny art pieces (2-D stuff of all sorts, as well as jewelry, little sculptures, maybe even ceramics) by various artists. You choose the artist whose work sparks your interest, then you pull that spring lever, and out comes a cigarette-pack-size box or wood block with the art. You have some idea of what the genre and vein is, but the specific work you get is a bit of roulette.
The first Art-o-mat was created by artist Clark Whittington in 1997 to accompany a solo show of his paintings. He converted a newly banned cigarette vending machine to dispense his black-and-white photos mounted on blocks. The phenomenon took off and there are now hundreds of these machines around the country.
Embarrassingly, I can’t remember where I first encountered the Art-o-mat — I think it was in our local Whole Foods Market when it opened in 2012, but it might have been in the lobby of the original Meow Wolf, a surreal, interactive art installation/experience in Santa Fe, NM. Either way, I’ve since made it a habit to seek them out when I travel.
On an anniversary getaway to Minneapolis, I picked a hotel based on their Art-o-mat in the bar and snagged a moody, low-angle B&W photo of prairie grasses. The aforementioned machine at Meow Wolf yielded a playful gyotaku-inspired fish print. And most recently, I dragged my family across Chicago during a college parents weekend to visit the aqua steel beauty at Judy Maxwell Home, a delightfully cheeky gift shop in Old Town owned by actress Joan Cusack. (See our haul from that stop below.)
You can find a listing of Art-o-mat locations here, though I suggest you call ahead to be sure they are still in place (some of the ones I’ve visited over the years, including that Whole Foods spot and the Santa Fe Meow Wolf, have since moved).
Happy art hunting!
POSTSCRIPT:
One of my favorite new Substack reads is One Thing from
and Nate Gallant, which I found while looking into Chayka’s book after hearing him on Ezra Klein’s podcast, and which reminds me of the best parts of the old Daily Candy email newsletters and The Observer’s “Three Things” interview piece. (These are the threads of curiosity that are so much fun to follow and pull, my friends.) Anyway, Chayka and Gallant curate a fantastic biweeklyish selection of singular finds based on the writer’s specific tastes, and last week Gallant had an excellent post about shopping for art at funky antiques shops and rambling antiques malls. It is definitely worth a read:
The quote originally appeared in a July 2016 piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about an art show Ezra Croft was producing entirely devoted to works about the actor Bill Murray. (It was actually the second annual Bill Murray show, following a previous one dedicated to Nicolas Cage.) Best of all — ironic or apropos — Croft also worked for Bed Bath and Beyond at the time.
My favorite vending machine art experience comes in pencil form ... as you know. AND THE PENCIL FORTUNES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN CORRECT, I MIGHT ADD.
You know I love me a flea market painting.