Lockport brewery lets you tap into artwork through vending machines

Lockport Mayor Steve Streit and his wife, Wendy, first laid eyes on the Art-o-mat while attending a convention for the city at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Wendy Streit, who’s chairwoman of Lockport’s summer arts series, said she saw several of these repurposed cigarette machines in various locations at the hotel. Each machine held original, cigarette pack-sized artwork for purchase. She said she wondered, “Why can’t we have one?”

So she called the number on the machine’s sticker and asked the founder, Clark Whittington of North Carolina, how she could bring a machine to Lockport. The Art-o-mat now sits inside Nik & Ivy Brewing in Lockport.

“We capture people’s imagination. We lead artists to reach people they may not otherwise reach.”

—  Clark Whittington, founder, Art-o-mat

Whittington said he founded the Art-o-mat in 1997 when he sold a couple hundred of his mounted black-and-white photographs for $1 each from a recently banded cigarette machine. He then installed the machine at a local café, where he was to host a solo art show, as one of 13 pieces he exhibited.

“Once it was onsite, people responded well to it,” Whittington said. “As artists became involved, it became more of a group thing. We’ve been doing this for 26 years now.”

About 200 active machines hold the art of 400 artists and are placed in locations around the world, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC., Whittington said. Most locations are in the U.S.

“Nik & Ivy’s been so generous with letting us keep it there,” Wendy Streit said. “If someone loses their money in the machine, they give them the money and then we reimburse them.”

Wendy Streit said she selected a machine that complemented the brewing company and Lockport overall.

“And every two to three months, we get a fresh batch of artwork,” she said.

Whittington said he never initially intended for the Art-o-mat to become a business. But once he wasn’t the only person involved, he said he felt responsible for ensuring artists were treated well as he connected their work with prospective patrons.

Running Art-o-mat as a business made the most sense to him.

“I do have two employees now and a great body shop that helps me,” Whittington said. “And that’s how we’ve been working – as a group collaborative effort between the host, the artist and our studio.”

Whittington said he always is seeking more artists and artists can stay in the program as long as they like. Any submitted prototypes must follow stringent specifications since they are distributed through refurbished cigarette machines.

Or, as Whittington said he tells artists, “Let’s have a good time selling little pieces of art.”

Most artwork sells for $5, with $2.50 going back to the artist. Whittington said artists who approach the Art-o-mat as side income may be disappointed, since making lots of money isn’t the point.

“We capture people’s imagination,” Whittington said. “We lead artists to reach people they may not otherwise reach. We’re trying to make people aware of what they’re doing.”

That said, Art-o-mat does make money for the artists, too.

“We sell about 100,000 pieces a year of others’ artwork,” Whittington said. “There’s a lot of people who’ve seen a lot of art.”

For more information, visit nikivybrewing.com and artomat.org.