Steph Steph Blog Blog: To vend

Before our fmp ( I think) we had a rather fantastic guest speaker come in and give us a talk about his work: Stuart Kolokavic. it was one of the rare occasions where I was familiar with the artist's work before the lecture. His work is quite simply, stylish and beautiful. Inspired by his family's Eastern European roots it has a folkish feel about it, which a gorgeous contemporary twist. And what's more, as some sort of fantastic bonus, he was a cool guy. Just a few years out of uni, it was good to see how far a student could evolve into an artist. But before I ramble too far, I shall get to my point; at his final show, Stuart sold mini screen-printed comics from a refurbished vending machine.

How simple, innovative, and utterly fantastic an idea. I was inspired. I've always found 'merchandise' important as an artist, for me, art is something that goes beyond media on paper. My first thought was to try and find a cheap gumball/capsule machine to sell items for the show. But eBay didn't yield anything right for my specifications; I needed something that vended at least £1, and even that would be cutting my options short. It was difficult to find a machine like this for cheap. After a few feverish days of searching, I gave up.

About a month later, I resumed the search. I decided to look for small wall mounted machines, cigarettes, stamps or similar.

I often found machines that would be adequate, but there always seemed to be a catch; either they were in America and so shipping was extortionate, they were collection only, or as the machines were old they only accepted old coins. (some took sixpence pieces, and I considered that I could buy one plus buy some old coins, and sell the coins like tokens. However I feared that would involve faffing around, would take time and possibly detract from sales. I wanted it to be simple and straightforward, and a 6d machine didn't seem the way forward.

I came across a small cadburys snack machine. At first glance it was obviously in the toy category, but it seemed more advanced than the standard faire. At £17 buy it now (including postage) I decided to go for it. When it arrived however, I realised it really was too toy for my needs. It would be difficult to have more than one item in each compartment, it would need some sort of case to be kept in and secured to the wall, and theft prevention would probably be nigh impossible. Alas, it was a waste.