Art “Venue” Highlight: Winston-Salem’s Art-o-Mat
(From www.artomat.org)
The subject of today’s post is somewhat of a throwback to art school for us, and it’s also the only thing we knew about the Piedmont Triad before moving out here: the Art-o-Mat. (For those of you who have experienced it—especially for those of you from Winston-Salem, where the Art-o-Mat was born—thanks for bearing with us!)
It’s a project 13 years strong that uses old refurbished cigarette vending machines to sell small pieces of art submitted by artists all over the world. In our basic art foundations boot camp class in art school, we had to create 10 pieces to fit the size specifications (about the size of a cigarette package) for an Art-o-Mat; it was probably one of the most fun we had on a project we did that semester. Unfortunately we didn’t have any near us in West Virginia or nearby Maryland, but now we’re living in the state where the most of them are located!
(Below: This Paper Ship ca. 2006 in their art school days visiting the Art-o-Mat in the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A.)
We like them not only because they’re a cool idea and the mid-century design of the machines is killer, but also because it’s example of NC artists using local particulars—in this case, NC’s 150+ year strong relationship with tobacco—in creative ways. We love traveling to new places, but we like to be aware of the fact that there’s usually a vast wealth of inspiration staring at you the minute you walk out your door. This is a great reminder!
—Joel and Ashley, This Paper Ship
NOTE: We realized after writing this that someone probably covered about the Art-o-Mat already, so we searched for it on the IndieNC blog. Sure enough, Michelle interviewed Clark Whittington, the creator of the Art-o-Mat, about a year ago! We wanted to leave our post up, though, because Art-o-Mat is that cool of a project that it deserves extra attention. (Plus, we think it’s funny using old pictures of us as guest writers on a blog.)
Yay Ashley and Joel! Awesome posts.