Art Print Vending Machines

A few months ago I mentioned the first art print vending machine I found at the Birmingham Art Museum. The “Little Red Print Shop”  included a variety of prints by Jessica Leitch and I was pleased when I got the bird one. After I mounted it on a map of Alabama along with the watercolor birds my Alabama grandniece painted for our Rushmer Christmas place cards, I put it in the living room bathroom because that’s where the birds are and I thought that was that.

But then I came across a “Mini Print Vending Machine” at Inkling, a store in our neighborhood. I put in my four quarters and got this beautiful carrot print. The Inkling saleswoman mentioned that these mini print machines were all over the United States and had their own Instagram account. I checked it out and learned all about printmaker Ana Inciardi who grew up in Brooklyn and is now based in Portland, Maine. She came up with the idea for the vending machines as a way to get quarters for the laundromat. She knew about the Art O Mat refurbished cigarette machines and remembered the sticker and temporary tattoo machines she had patronized as a child in Brooklyn and wondered if there was some way she could design a machine that could dispense her prints for quarters. She launched her first machine in 2022 and now has over 200 across the United States. Her prints start with a linocut and are printed using the risograph method. Most are food focused and it is important to her that they remain accessible and affordable.

I knew I wanted to display our print in the kitchen but I wasn’t quite sure how since our kitchen essentially has no walls. But since I’d taken the little bird place cards out of their tiny jam jar holders I stuck the carrot print in one of them. It eventually migrated to the kitchen counter next to the kitchen scene birthday card from my sister that I’d stuck in a plexiglass frame and in front of the baking skeleton my older daughter gave us. I think they all go together quite well (as my mother would say).

Then we found these Tracey Lynn Art print vending machines in Saugatuck and Holland that included reproductions of Tracey Venama’s watercolor paintings. According to an article in the Holland Sentinel, Tracey got the idea for her vending machines after seeing a NYC machine on TikTok. I imagine it was probably one of the Inciardi mini print machines. I was so pleased to get an Oval Beach print in Saugatuck and one of the prints she created for Tulip Time in Holland because we attended it a few years ago.

I knew I needed to make another souvenir map and when my daughter sent me a link to a new art print vending machine at Midwest Nice in Chicago, I knew there would be a series!

The “Mini Print Vending Machine by Ooorn” (artist Ornuma Panmunee) currently includes architecture art. Our quarters yielded a bungalow, a two flat, and a three flat.

I loved the way all three look together but there isn’t much wall space left in our apartment so at first I thought they were going to have to stay in the bathroom but then I realized we had the perfect space.

Now if we come across any other art print vending machines on our travels, we’ll have plenty of room for another map or two or …