Editors Note: SUNY Potsdam is located across Main St. from the Collegiate Village Potsdam CVP and Old Main Apartment buildings in Potsdam, NY.
There is a new invention on the SUNY Potsdam campus in Carson Hall. It is a renovated cigarette vending machine that now dispenses original works of art. Incredible as it may sound, the inventor, T. Clark Whittington of Winson-Salem, N.C. has sold about 130 such vending machines operational.
Apparently, Mr. Whittington acquires old cigarette vending machines, refurbishes and repaints them, and fills them with original art work in cigarette-sized boxes. The art dispensing machine in Carson Hall at SUNY Potsdam can hold work from up to 12 original artists at a time.
According to the Watertown Daily Times, April K. Vasher-Dean, director of the art museum at SUNY Potsdam said, “We have some mini-sculptures, some oil paintings — I just restocked it with some journals. That was exciting — it’s only been up since Monday.” (January 22, 2018).
Apparently, SUNY Potsdam English Professor, Richard M. Henry and Dr. Vasher-Dean got the Art-O-Mat at the Lougheed-Kofoed Festival of the Arts. All proceeds from the machine will go toward this festival.