Hello friends!
I’m at the start of a full week off work and am thrilled at the days ahead of me. We’re headed to Rasar State Park for two nights in a cabin surrounded by trees, moss, lichen and hopefully lots of slugs and fungi. I will report back.
Don’t Go Round Artless! Visit an Art-o-mat near you.
What the heck is an Art-o-mat?
They’re a brilliant re-use of old cigarette vending machines is what they are! And there are over 100 of them out in the wild - there might even be one near you. It turns out there’s one just a 15 minute drive from me in the lovely little town of Snohomish. Exciting!
Cigarette vending machines were once ubiquitous fixtures in bars and nightclubs, but fell by the wayside as indoor smoking was banned.1 They can still be found, but are few and far between. Vending machine history is something to delve into another day, but suffice it to say the decline in smoking and changing laws left a surplus of exquisitely designed machines behind. Some went to the scrap heap, and others ended up in the hands of Clark Whittington, the creator of Art-o-mat.
The inspiration for Art-o-mat® came to artist Clark Whittington while observing a friend who had a Pavlovian reaction to the crinkle of cellophane. When the friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too.
In June 1997, Clark was set to have a solo art show at a local cafe, Penny Universitie in Winston-Salem, N.C. He used a recently-banned cigarette machine to create the first Art-o-mat®. It was installed along with 12 of his paintings. The machine sold Clark’s black & white photographs mounted on blocks for $1.00 each.
Since then, Clark and an organization called Artists in Cellophane have refurbished many machines and placed them mostly across the U.S. I recently stumbled across them on Instagram, despite the fact they’ve been around almost as long as Nolan. Have you ever run across one in the wild? The machines are gorgeous - some have an Art Deco look, others are definitely Mid-century Modern. Check out the gallery - it’s hard to pick a favorite!
Oooooohhhh…
Ahhhhhh…
The art sold in these machines of course must fit when wrapped in cellophane, either created directly on a wooden block or made to fit in a small box. In case you’re unable to get to one of the machines, you can order a pack of 10 pieces to keep or give away. This gives you an idea of what the art may look like:
Anyone is welcome to submit a prototype for consideration if they’d like their art to be sold in an Art-o-mat machine. And no, as interesting as it sounds I’m not going there myself. Churning out little blocks with art on them won’t ever pay the bills, and would likely sap the joy right out of making art altogether! Instead when public health conditions improve a bit I’ll drive over to Snohomish and check out the nearby machine.
On September 4th, it was looking like they might finally clean up the pool and put it away. The pool had been flipped over and propped up on the garbage can. The nearby hose along with a small pool of water on the pool indicated a new type of activity - cleaning of some sort.
On September 10th, they moved the pool to clear the area for playing basketball. Screechy girl and Grandpa had a session of shooting hoops together that afternoon.
On Friday (the 17th), our first fall storm blew in and it started raining. Between then and today we’ve had 1.69” of rain…
Which has now collected in the upside-down pool.
On a side note, I recently noticed an inflated air mattress under their deck. Earlier this summer (or maybe before summer started), the Mom of the Kids came over to ask if we had something to blow up an air mattress because they were going to sleep outside. They eventually found something to get the job done. Whether they lasted all night is unknown - it was still pretty cold at night at that time. Apparently the mattress got shoved under the deck where it’s sat unused for months. Here it is today. Yikes.
Are they unaware of how to deflate things?
My biggest fear this week is that they’ll finally do something with the pool while we’re away at the cabin, and I’ll miss the grand finale. Chances are slim based on the evidence, but you never know.
A few items of interest…
A polemic from Anne Helen Petersen about the professionalization of youth sports. One of the best things she’s written (and that’s saying something, because everything is good - she’s been knocking it out of the park again and again lately).
An Open Letter to Airbnb. The pitchforks are coming
AirBnB started with good intentions, but has created a monster that steals residential homes and puts them in the hands of giant corporations. Think twice before you stay in one (there are other options).
Michael has made this soup a couple of times and it is DELICIOUS. Double the recipe, it’s not real big and you will want more!
You can buy stuff online, but getting it is another story
The supply chain is messed up and will be for quite a while, so we’re all going to have to learn to be patient. What this doesn’t explain is why FedEx continues to lie about expected delivery dates and then send nearly every package through an endless cycle of “pending,” “possible delay,” “on vehicle for delivery,” etc. I’ve got yet another package caught up in this mess. Around the 13th they changed expected delivery to the 17th, but there appears to be no movement since the 12th. I understand there are staffing shortages and a variety of other issues causing delays, and I don’t mind waiting. What I do mind is the continued dishonesty. If you have problems, say so! UPS and USPS aren’t doing this, despite experiencing many of the same issues. Gripe over.
For a small bowl of Mikes Hun Soup I’ll stab both those loser inflatables for y’all.
PS -Rain!
I used to love sneaking into the blue dolphin in downtown oak harbor to buy illicit cigarettes 😂 I miss all the cigarette ephemera and paraphernalia, but don’t miss the lingering scent on my clothes.