Technically, it is but...

Some time ago I remember a discussion on one of the email lists I belong to about a vending machine called Artomat. Its a cool concept: artist make little pieces of art, pack them up in boxes and then they get put into a vending machine where people can plop in $5 and walk away with a piece of hand made art. Neat idea...so when I was out today and saw one in a shop in Northville, I thought, "what the heck? let's support these artists." There was one that was labeled finger puppets and I love those quirky little things so I chose that one. This is what I got...


Its the tip of a knit glove that has been cut off and then a button was glued (quite messily) onto it. The artist is Karen Emi Nakashima of Los Angeles, CA. Hmmmmm.....now let me say that I am a big fan of outsider art and I love assemblage so I'm often the one staring with awed fascination at something other people think is just plain weird. Do I think this is worth $5? Ummmm...not so much.

So I looked up their website when I got home and there is a section where you can click on the artist's name and see what kind of art they have put into the vending machines. I would recommend to anyone who thinks they might try out one of these machines to browse through the names so you can get an idea of what they really hold.

I'm not so impressed with the finger puppet I got. I didn't expect to get a picasso for pete's sake but I guess I expected a little more effort then just chopping up a glove and gluing buttons down. Some of the artists have used this small format to generate really unique ideas. (Seriously, take a look through the artists section on the artomat webpage, there's some neat stuff there.) I pretty much feel like I wasted my money but there's not much I can do about it now. Just thought I would pass it along as an FYI to anyone else out there who encounters one of these machines...