Anna Glassman-Kaufman had never fielded so many concerned inquiries before.
As the marketing coordinator for France 44 in Linden Hills, she’s used to the occasional question about an upcoming wine tasting or current sandwich specials. But these shoppers weren’t reaching out to ask about cut-to-order cheeses or butchery offerings.
They wanted to know when the Minneapolis shop’s Inciardi Mini Print Vending Machine was going to be refilled.
“We were out of stock for like a week and a half,” she laughs. “And the number of messages we got on our Instagram from folks wondering when they were coming back was crazy.”
For the uninitiated, Ana Inciardi is a relief printmaker based in Portland, Maine. Her prints, most of which feature food items—olives, hot dogs, everything bagels—had a viral moment in 2023, when she shared a video of one of her earliest Mini Print Vending Machines to Instagram, amassing millions of views.
Today, there are more than 75 Mini Print Vending Machines around the U.S., and more are introduced every month. There’s one in Duluth, at Northern Waters Smokehaus, and another in Grand Marais, at Roam & Whimsy Co. There’s just one in the Twin Cities, and it’s lived in the lobby at France 44 since last October.
But if those frantic Instagrammers really want to exchange a few quarters for a miniature work of art, they have other options. Mini art vending machines have been popping up all over Minnesota for the last few years at print shops, art markets, museums, and even in parks. From Bench Pressed letterpress shop in Seward to Silverwood Park in St. Anthony and beyond, there’s probably a small art vending machine near you.
The appeal of these little vending machines is immediate. They’re fun to use and cheap to buy from, and there’s an element of nostalgia in the mix, whether you remember buying rabbit feet or sticky hands or little alien guys from similar coin-operated machines. And, in an age dominated by computers, crypto, and AI-generated slop, the premise is invitingly simple: real art, made by hand, exchanged for real money, just a few coins’ worth.
“I love the tactile piece of it,” Glassman-Kaufman says. “There’s nothing digital about it; you don’t even have to plug in the machine. It’s just quarters and prints, and that’s it.”
A decade before Ana Inciardi, there was Caitlin Warner.
In 2012, during a residency at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, the local printmaker and book artist dreamt up the “Unvending” project, which brought miniature screen-printed books and other works to refurbished machines in locations throughout the Twin Cities.
“I was a bit jaded with the whole, I don’t know, fine art thing,” she says, “and not quite sure how to navigate wanting to genuinely connect with people and make stuff for the sake of loving it… versus all the strange ways you have to contort yourself to try to monetize your work and make it more serious and important-sounding than it is as a fine artist with a capital A.”
The Unvending machines were a way to explore some of those tensions. Warner scoured eBay and Craigslist for old machines and filled them with tiny handmade books and prints whose subject matter often corresponded with whatever each machine had vended in its previous life. You could find a tiny book about love in a condom machine, or a scroll with notes on acting in an emergency in a repurposed tampon dispenser.
For printers like Mary C. Bruno of Bruno Press in St. Joseph, there’s an obvious appeal to these devices: "I’m obsessed with all analog, vintage shit anyways,” she says. Bruno remembers being enamored with Art-o-mats, those old cigarette machines that were repurposed to distribute art beginning in the late ’90s, which Inciardi has also cited as an early inspiration.
But the opportunities for distributing art via vending machine go beyond prints. Local pop artist Boxy Mouse sells buttons and mini skate decks out of machines at United Noodles, while Jessica Behnke Heusinkveld of Lumps of Clay Studios puts tiny ceramic creations in a vending machine that travels with her to festivals throughout central Minnesota.
At the Spare Change Gallery on East Lake Street, the vending machine functions like a gift shop, full of stickers and zines that correspond with a rotating public art exhibit. The Minneapolis gallery, a project of community art space Curiosity Studio, is located in a hallway shared by the studio and Laune Bread, and currently displays a collection of prints made using day-old breads and croissants from the bakery.
Curiosity Studio director and instructor Lauren Callis notes that sometimes art museums and galleries can feel a little uncomfortable for the average person. “I think there’s a reputation around art and the spaces that hold and house art to be a little distant,” she says.
In her work, she loves to use art as a tool for public connection, and the vending machine can help with that. It’s approachable. Buying from it is easy and immediate. It can inspire excitement, perhaps more than art on a wall. Anyone can take a sticker or zine with them, a reminder of the art they just saw.
It’s fun, it’s playful, and it helps to invite people in, making it so visitors feel like part of the exhibit, something Callis is always thinking about. “Not disruption, necessarily—that’s too extreme a word for it,” she says. “But, ‘how do you provoke peoples’ engagement?’”
On the other hand, if you prefer not to engage with anyone? The machines are handy there, too. Warner describes her Unvending project, which drew to a close a few years after it started, as an exercise in making “art for weirdo little introverts like myself.”
“It’s a very indirect way of connecting with people,” she says, and part of the appeal was “wanting to connect with people without necessarily having the social confidence to walk up directly and hand them something.”
Bench Pressed owners Jane and Andy Shannon agree: There’s definitely something to the “art for introverts” idea. During warmer months, they roll up the wide garage door in front of their shop, with the vending machine facing towards the sidewalk. They’ve seen more than one person buy a print (or a few) from the vending machine and then skip away, without ever setting foot inside.
“People [have] pulled up in their cars, popped a couple quarters in, and then ran back,” Andy laughs.
But even these elusive quarter-plunkers contribute to a sense of community. The Bench Pressed vending machine is full of anti-war, pro-peace prints with messages like “stop bombing children” and “peace please.” Seeing people purchase the prints makes the Shannons feel a little less alone; even if things seem helpless, at least you know you’re not the only one who feels this way. And, like zines or stickers, the mini prints can be a way to disseminate a political idea quickly, cheaply, and effectively.
“We definitely sold out of ‘stop bombing children’ instantly, and have had to reprint that one, which feels really fucked up,” Jane says. One local teacher bought 30 of the “peace please” prints to distribute to her class ahead of the start of the school year.
It helps that the art in these machines is super cheap. Prints at Bench Pressed go for 50 cents, and rarely are they priced above a dollar anywhere else, making them accessible to just about everyone. (Where else can you get 30 of anything for $15?)
The vending machines tend to be a hit with young folks. Kids love the fun of putting quarters into a machine and getting something new, as do young adults, many of whom, especially in the case of Ana Inciardi’s food prints, have seen the machines going viral on Instagram or TikTok.
“I think a big audience for this kind of work is younger folks, early 20s, who maybe aren’t spending as much time in Linden Hills and wouldn't have otherwise found our shop,” says Glassman-Kaufman at France 44. The Mini Print Vending Machine has been a new way to get them in the door, “and hopefully get them to try a sandwich while they’re here.”
And, especially with the machines in which prints are randomized, there’s an element of surprise—you never quite know what your quarters will win you. Glassman-Kaufman has watched people dump $12 or more in quarters into the Inciardi machine, one buck at a time, hoping to score a particular print. Warner says it’s like a handcrafted version of the current blind box craze. Instead of Labubus, linocuts.
“That idea of the Russian roulette of art process—what are you gonna get?—is still such an exciting thing,” Callis agrees.
This Saturday, a new art vending machine from Nancy Ariza of Amilado Press will make its debut at Silverwood Park.
Most of the art machines out there are solo enterprises, featuring works by a single artist or shop. Ariza’s is a little different.
At Amilado, she focuses on collaborative printing, artist residencies, and community programming, both with Minnesota artists and national and international artists. Ariza thought the vending machine would fittingly fulfill the press’s community focus—a way to get art out in front of new people and possibly introduce them to the idea of collecting art, “at a very accessible scale and price,” she says.
But rather than highlighting her own illustrations, Amilado’s new vending machine will feature works by three Latinx artists—María José Castillo, Lynda Grafito, and Genessis Lopez—that were collaboratively screenprinted by Ariza at her Richfield studio.
From left: opossum print by Lynda Grafito, building print by María José Castillo, and flower print by Genessis Lopez.Courtesy of Amilado Press
All three of the featured artists do some printmaking, and they each have a nature-based focus Ariza thought would be perfect for the park. The vending machine’s arrival coincides with Silverwood’s annual Field Trip festival, with prints of wildlife, florals, and outdoor scenes. And it will remain in the park’s visitor center long after Saturday’s crowds disperse.
Ariza says that certain things about distributing art in a refurbished vending machine can be tricky; for example, after several failed attempts with cans of spraypaint, she had to sandblast the old, fading paint from the machine and powder coat it.
But collaborating with and uplifting other artists, and giving them a platform with which to show their work? That’s just a natural part of her practice, even if typically there are no quarters involved.
“The same care and collaboration and attention to detail is present,” she says, “even though the scale is small.”
Find the mini art vending machines featured in this story:
Amilado Press
Located at the Silverwood Park Visitor Center
2500 County Rd. E., St. Anthony
Bench Pressed
2010 26th Ave. S. #1, Minneapolis
Bruno Press
154 Southeast Fifth Ave., St. Joseph
Schedule a visit or find the upcoming events calendar here.
France 44
4351 France Ave. S., Minneapolis
Spare Change Gallery
3607 E. Lake St., Minneapolis
