Marco Island Center for the Arts adds Art-o-mat ahead of 2021-2022 season

Marco Island Center for the Arts has added a new way to buy art for any visitors to the 1010 Winterberry Drive facility. 

The Art-o-mat machine is an art installation made from a repurposed cigarette machine and offers each visitor to the building an easy and affordable way to own a small piece of handmade art.   

The inspiration for Art-o-mat came to artist Clark Whittington while observing a friend who had a Pavlovian response to the crinkle of cellophane. When the friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too.

Whittington used a recently banned cigarette machine to create the first Art-o-mat as part of a solo exhibition in Winston Salem, NC in 1997. This machine sold Whittington’s black and white photographs mounted on blocks and wrapped in cellophane for one dollar each. When the show was scheduled to leave the gallery the owner, Cynthia Giles, loved the machine so much that she asked that it stay permanently. Giles introduced Whittington to a handful other local artists to provide additional pieces for the Art-o-mat and the group Artists in Cellophane (AIC) was formed.

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The Art Center joins the over 100 venues nationwide that house one of these unique machines. Located in the atrium, this new addition offers special surprises as we open the 2021-2022 season.  The genuine small pieces of art dispensed are perfect gifts or mementos of the visit for art collectors and new visitors alike.