Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Strange Vending Machines In LA

Art Candy Machine
Earlier this month we showed off Stefanie Girard’s Art Candy Machine. You can get art at $5 a piece to fit nicely in your home or office or many people of today's home office.

The Art Candy Machine is currently located at the corner of Oak and Fairview in Burbank, CA.
In the driveway with over 100 pieces of art on the fence. (Burbank Neighborhood Gallery)
Put: W Oak St & N Fairview St, Burbank, CA 91505 into Google maps.
 
Read more about it here: Wait, There's An Art Candy Machine?
 
This recent find made us go down the rabbit hole to look for other strange vending machines. And sadly, we don't have the same crazy stuff Japan has. We do have some strange ones of our own, though.

 
I'll flat out say, "I hate the The Sprinkles Cupcake ATMs," Here's the headline I put up after encountering my first one in 2016. The Cupcake ATM at Sprinkles Is Very Lackluster. Since then, the machine has multiplied in numbers. The roam the land selling high priced cupcakes. You can check the Sprinkles website or SecretLA's guide for a location near you. Then you can see how lackluster machines are in person. But, they do sell you cupcakes in cute boxes.


Let's get past the Cupcake ATMs, and see another project from Ms.Girard. An even smaller art machine. A gumball-sized gallery will be dispensing art starting July 3rd at the Neutra Institute Gallery & Museum for their Tree Art Show.
 No details, but hopefully it's just costs you a quarter to pic up a micro piece of art.
 
Staying in the art space, but driving you all the way to Orange County is an Art-O-Mat, a refurbished
cigarette machine the sells art. This is the closes one to LA. Oddly, enough it's in a hair salon. 
 
The Livingroom Salon
125 Rochester St, Costa Mesa, CA 92627
P 949-631-0808
 
This is one of many Art-O-Mats around the country. What started as an art show has led many people to create their own art-selling-machines. Just like the independent Art Candy Machine it's $5 a piece. And it looks like it can be stocked by any artist who follows the rules on the site.




Next, not really a vending machine, but caught my eye over at LAist, Free Little Art Gallery NOHO or FLAG North Hollywood is a mini gallery where people can put up mini art, take it or do both.
This is by far one of the cutest ideas to come out of Covid. The little gallery doesn't seem to charge a dime, but would like it if you maybe left some art of your own. I kind of want to just take any action figure or amiibo I own with me, just to take some photos of them admiring this tiny gallery.

You can find it at Corner of Carpenter and Calvert in North Hollywood.

Getting back to strange food and drink, how about some juice? Well, then you have Juicebot! No, it's not a juice squirting vending robot. That would be funny. It's just a fresh juice. All machines claim to be restocked in 24-48 hours and there's only 4 flavors to choose from. You also have 4 locations to choose from around. It does look quite refreshing.
Then, there's the Beverly Hills Caviar Automated Boutique, which we don't see any evidence online of being still open. They were in malls during the pandemic. Yes, these are the caviar vending machines and they would cost you a fortune for anything inside. 
 
It's not just caviar they held, but escargot, gourmet salts and mother-of-pearl oysters to eat.
 
The website for the purveyors of the costly indulgence have no devoted links on where to find them. I have to guess they might be off the market, even though things are more open after the 15th of June, 2021. They might have even gone off to vending machine heaven well before Covid even hit.

 Update 4/7/22

 

MINIMINIGAME


Located in the Hive Art Gallery downtown you may spot this "micro-gallery." We have a new entry:

729 S Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 90014
Located in Hive Art Gallery
Hours: By Appointment Only or when an exhibiting show is open

These capsule machines contain the work of an artist for about a month or multiple artists. Right now, you can see what's in the machines here. It's quite a colorful collection based on artists we've mentioned on the site before; many related to video games, some fictional.
 

The price ranges our from $5-$15, but they sure are cute collectibles. 

 

We have another new entry, Revenge Of's Mystery DVD Vending Machine. Put in a $5 and see what you'll get. But, it's not only mystery DVD's you can get. 1/5 of the DVD cases have a special prize in them, like gift cards or free drinks. It's a quirky concept that just adds a little fun for the old media that can be used as a frisbee.

3420 Eagle Rock Blvd

So, that's it for strange vending machine around LA. We probably missed some hidden gems, like a well stocked soda machine with foreign delights or at least one machine that sells clothes. If so,

please e-mail at thingstodoinla1 (@) gmail.com with a pic and a location of other strange vending machines or anything like them.

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