Clark Whittington started ArtOmat some time ago in NorthCarolina...
The organization came to my attention because I had a sister living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina doing her undergrad studies....
She discovered one of the machines at a local co-op...and knew the whole Idea would appeal to me without a doubt...
It took me a while to come up with the right idea to package in a small cigarette box...but eventually I did...
And then there was the time it took to slowly come up with the drawings...each one was unplanned and were individual improvisations...depending on my mood....
I was working for a ceramic studio at the time...probably where I got the idea in the first place....
I would fire them in batches at work...Thanks to the owner, Kristin Nelson, for whom I was working on her KRI KRI line of ceramic dinnerware....she was very generous...
packaging details...
(I used Hammerite spray paint on some of the boxes that made them look like hammered metal....just for kicks...)
The reverse side had a little logo painted onto it as well....
I made the packaging using cigarette boxes I collected and then redesigned....
I designed a label to seal the tiles into their little homes for shipping...(incidentally, this lil tile character seemed to get alot more response from people I showed it to than any other tiles...funny how you just never know what people will respond to...)
I used a wine bottle to role out the clay...when you look at them up close you can see imprints of various raised symbols on the glass that became imprinted in the clay....I think they are used to guide the machines used to label the bottles...(?) I think it adds an extra layer of texture to the whole story...
A group of these tiles ended up in the machine at the Whitney Art Museum's gift store...so you could say I have shown work at the Whitney...kinda cool don't you think...?
Each tile was fired and then each one was glazed and refired...so they look like shiney decals you can peel off and stick someplace....
Tiles were packaged and sent to ARTOMAT.org...then distributed to various machines nationwide...
Tiles measured just shy of the size of an actual cigarete box...
all tiles could be placed in any direction according to the viewers desire....
....over 100 tiles all told....
