Long before the art market bubble showed any signs of bursting, Clark Whittington’s Art-o-mat brought affordable art to the masses.

Chalk up another victory for human progress: Clark Whittington has started a business in the heart of tobacco country, retooling cigarette machines to hook people on something a lot healthier than smoking. When he is finished with them, Whittington’s machines dispense small artworks to people who may have never owned art before. “I came up with a way to use these machines for good,” he says. “It lets artists reach regular people and culture the habit of living with art.”
Called Art-o-mat, Whittington’s enterprise began with a machine he reengineered to sell his own creations in 1997, not long after Congress banned cigarette machines in public places. “I put it in an art show held in a coffee shop, and after it was over, the owner wouldn’t let me take the machine out,” he recalls. “Other artists starting making works scaled to fit inside a cigarette box to sell in it for a dollar or two, and it just grew from there.”
Hearing of Whittington’s new enterprise, local businesses all but begged him to take old cigarette machines off their hands, and he began customizing them to suit their new purpose and venues. With eye-popping auto-body finishes, custom branding and retro appeal, they lured hosting sites, artist contributors and customers in droves. “I realized early on that you can’t sell Art-o-mat by making a cold call,” Whittington says. “You just have to ‘get it’ to want to be a part of it. This is not about commerce or scale-ability, and it’s not a business model. It’s about simple access to art.”
Whittington’s operation, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., and heading into its 12th year, has now placed 85 machines in museums, hotels and food stores all over the world. This spring three more machines will join those already installed in the U.S. Four hundred artists in 11 countries contribute tiny works that Whittington stores in his basement and sends to hosts on request. “I provide firm size and packaging guidelines on the Art-o-mat Web site and match up artworks to the locations where I think they’ll do the best,” he says. “But when it comes to the content, I just provide feedback.”
Roughly 20,000 works sell each year at $5 each. Artists get $2.50 of that, the host $1.50 and Whittington $1.00. Profits may be slim but the machines are nonetheless a boon to all involved. Hosts gain foot traffic and good will, and artists get promotion.
New York-based artist Herbert Hoover, whose pewter pretzels and saltines are sold in machines at the Whitney Museum of Art and art supply store Utrecht, among other places, says that people who have bought, heard about or seen his small items have commissioned custom pieces. That in turn has fueled new concepts for larger works. “It’s incredible to watch people’s expressions as they open a box,” says Hoover. “I’ve heard people squeal with delight and even clap.”
Such reactions also keep Whittington going, as does his affection for the art and the artists he promotes. He now sells limited edition books of flat art through his Web site and will soon start selling sculptural works.
The machines continue to be his mainstay, though, and he has no idea how large the market for them may ultimately be. Not long ago, one of the Smithsonian museums expressed an interest in them. Whittington’s eyes light up at the prospect: “Now wouldn’t that be a significant step forward for a shoestring operation.”