Cigarette machines are now packing art

Pull a knob on the vintage cigarette machine and you may pick up a new habit -- buying art.

The Art-o-Mat offers miniature paintings, sculpture and other tiny trinkets for not much more than a pack of Parliaments. The concept has hooked accidental art investors with refurbished vending machines in art galleries, coffee shops and grocery stores nationwide.

“We’re wanting to reach quality investors who haven’t taken art seriously before, and to support artists trying to make a living,” founding artist Clark Whittington said.

He sold his own artwork in the first Art-o-Mat in 1997 in a Winston-Salem, N.C., gallery. The project now includes more than 40 refurbished cigarette machines, including prime spots in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. About 300 artists worldwide contribute to the project.

In a Philadelphia Whole Foods grocery store, an Art-o-Mat stands just inside the front door between boxes of honeydew melons and shopping carts. Customers can select pocket-sized paintings -- a blue celestial-themed work by Whittington among them -- magnets, glassware, African bronze sculptures and something labeled “goat milk soap” created by 20 artists whose work is stocked in the machine.

Brett Mapp, the store’s community liaison, said about $2,000 worth of art has been sold through the Art-o-Mat since its arrival in October. Buyers are diverse.

“They’re very excited and they usually come back to show us what they got,” Mapp said, while restocking the machine with white boxes wrapped in cellophane, each the size of a pack of cigarettes. When he pulls open the machine, it still smells vaguely like tobacco.

Mobiles by Raleigh, N.C., artist Chris Stanford were the most popular pieces during the holidays, when people bought them as stocking stuffers, Mapp said.

Each Art-o-Mat selection costs $5; half goes to the artist, $1.50 to the host and $1 to Whittington for machine maintenance.

Whittington, 36, said he hopes the machines inspire people to make the leap from Art-o-Mat’s kitschy cool to serious art collecting.

“People who like to collect art can have a nice collection for a very modest investment. [It is also ideal for] people in very small apartments who don’t have a lot of wall space,” said artist Bob Ziller, who stocks a machine at the Beehive Southside, a coffee shop in Pittsburgh.