Art-O-Mat!

I read about Art-O-Mats a long time ago, thought they were really cool, then forgot about all about it. I recently came across one of my old Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazines: the Spring 2006 issue, with the article in it, and wanted to share it with you.

There's an artist from North Carolina who came up with the idea of reusing old cigarette vending machines for selling small pieces of art: 2" x 3", the outside dimensions for a pack of smokes. You buy a token, for around $5, and you get your very own original piece of art! 

  It's called an Art-O-Mat, and they're all over the world! The crazy thing is that there's even one in Bethlehem, PA! It's at Monsoon Art Gallery on the south side, and I now have to go check it out. 

 This orange machine is the one that's in Bethlehem. There are ones all over the place! You can look up their locations to see if there's one near you. If there is, I recommend supporting an artist, and picking up a bit of artwork!

  This red one is in Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco. There are Art-O-Mats in Washington state, D.C., Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Canada, Austria, you name it! They're all over the place if you're interested. I think that I'm going to try to come up with an idea for an art piece that I can replicate for use in one of these machines... you can submit your idea to the organization, and if you get it approved, it'll go into one of the machines! Some art-loving stranger could be buying your art! Kind of cool, right? I think so!

(I got these images of the Art-O-Mat machines from their website.)