Converted cigarette machine dispenses original art works

Pacific University has one of four Northwest Art-O-Mats

By Amie Dahnke

The Forest Grove News-Times, Sep 9, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

An “Art-O-Mat” machine, such as the one above, sits inside the student center on Forest Grove’s Pacific University campus. The machine allows art lovers to purchase cigarette-pack size works of art. It’s one of only four such vending machines in the Northwest.

Courtesy of Pacific University / News-Times

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The group of 20-something guys stood, hands jammed in pockets of tight fitting jeans, moppy hair hanging casually over their eyes.

The leader of the group – the tallest and lankiest of the trio – inserted a bill into the red and white machine, pulled a lever and picked out a white package. With his hip popped, the rat pack leader tapped the package into the palm of his left hand like a millennial James Dean trying to settle the tobacco in a pack of Winstons. He opened the package but didn’t take out a cigarette. Instead, the Pacific University student pulled out one of Portland-based artist Lebrie Rich’s small bling rings.

Last week Pacific University became only the second venue in Oregon, and the first in the Portland area, to house an Art-O-Mat vending machine. Art-O-Mats are old cigarette vending machines, refurbished with some buffing, paint – and, in some cases, glitter – space monkeys and parts from the board game Operation.

Then, they’re made into dispensaries for original art work.

Artist actually touched

“A lot of people on campus seem to be excited about it,” said Patricia Cheyne, a Pacific University art professor. “You’re getting art that the artist actually touched.”

The Art-O-Mat machine, located in the student center on the Forest Grove campus, houses cigarette-pack size pieces of art made by myriad artists, both local and nationally based. At Pacific, selections include jewelry, such as Eugene-based artist Brandi Crye’s tarot card earrings or local artist Ken Walker’s digital photographs, for just five dollars.

“When someone buys a piece of art like this, there’s a real connection being made between the artist and that person,” said Clark Whittington, creator of the Art-O-Mat machines.

“Buying is a process: You choose the piece, pull the lever and when it falls into the tray, it’s yours.”

Whittington’s brain child, now 12 years in the making, was first conceived while the North Carolina-based artist was working for a marketing firm.

“A friend of mine would have a Pavlovian-type reaction whenever he heard the crinkle of a wrapper from a snack purchased at a vending machine at work,” Whittington said during an inaugural lecture at Pacific last Thursday. “And I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have that reaction with art?’”

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