- Title
- Our State
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-
- Date
- February 2001
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our State
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ART PROVIDED BY BUCK HORSF PHOTOGRAPHY
Inside the lobby of the Green Hill Center for North
Carolina Art in Greensboro stands a curious contraption, an
old, yet clearly functioning vending machine, circa I960. Its
wedged in a comer all by its lonesome, strangely out of place,
I think at first glance, to house a pack of Nabs or a pack
of smokes.
Intrigued, I walk over for a closer inspection. “Don’t Go
Around Artless" reads the poster atop the machine. The
vibrant marquee heading spells out its use. "Art-O-Mat."
I fish around in my pockets for the requisite three bucks.
One by one — plink, plink, plink — I drop 12 quarters into
the slot and ponder my choices. A small window above each
column reveals an original work of art: oil paintings, wood
cuts, photography, even a "pack o’ poems." I make my selec¬
tion, give a quick pull of the lever, and instantly am rewarded
with a palm-sized package wrapped in cellophane. “Stained
C.lass by Jan Lukens,” it says, and I tear into it the way a child
rips open a Cracker Jack prize.
I have just purchased my first piece of original artwork: a
brilliant cobalt-blue-and-milk-white piece of ornamental
stained glass, complete with a hook for hanging. And now, 1
am hooked, as well.
Clark Whittington, a conceptual artist in Winston-Salem,
first hit on the idea of the Art-O-Mat through an an exhibition
in 1997. Inspired by a friend who, on hearing the crinkle of cel¬
lophane, was compelled to seek out a vending machine,
Whittington did a sketch based on that idea.
Living in Winston-Salem, home to the nation’s number-two
cigarette maker and aware of the Food and Drug
Administration’s proposal to ban cigarette vending machines
from public places, Whittington decided to bring his sketch to
life. He rescued an old cigarette machine that was destined for
the trash heap, refaccd it with the logo "Art-O-Mat," and
placed miniature samples of his photography in the machine’s
columns. He unveiled the machine during an art show at the
Penny Universitic coffeehouse.
It was an immediate success. The machine attracted the
attention of aspiring artists from Salem College and the North
Carolina School of the Arts, leading Whittington to create,
along with fellow artist George Doles III, the Artists-in-
Ccllophane collective. “It was a name that we could expand on
66 Our State February 2001
