Walk up to a vending machine at Cooperage Brewing Company in Santa Rosa and you will not find chips or candy bars behind the glass. Instead, rows of postcard-size artwork wait to be dispensed, part of a project called Chain Letter Gallery that is turning a routine beer run into a small art-buying experience.
The machine is the creation of Lesley Fontanilla, an artist, Sonoma State art graduate and transitional housing coordinator for foster youth at TLC Child & Family Services, according to The Press Democrat. Fontanilla found the machine for sale on Craigslist and picked it up from a storage unit in Napa, the outlet reports. She first encountered art-dispensing vending machines while traveling, including a stop in Las Vegas’ arts district, an experience that stuck with her long enough to inspire her own version.
Fontanilla told the Press Democrat she wanted a way to preserve the sense of community she found in art school and to give other artists a platform to share their work. She said the vending machine has a personal and exciting quality that people have lost, and described the whole setup as a fun, quirky way to introduce people to art. That philosophy extends to who gets to see it: Chain Letter Gallery aims to make art available to people who may not otherwise visit galleries or museums, per the same account.
What's Inside the Machine Right Now
The machine currently stocks work from two artists: Fontanilla herself and Ricky Watts, a muralist known for large-scale work on buildings around Sonoma County, including pieces at Tía María Panadería and Riley Street Art Supply. Watts worked on a mural at Tía María Panadería y Pastelería during a mural festival in the Roseland neighborhood in June 2022, and his larger designs are now sold as smaller-scale prints inside the machine. Fontanilla's own offerings include linocut prints of an anatomically correct heart and a portrait of David Lynch, the report notes.
Most pieces in the machine run between $8 and $20, according to the Press Democrat's reporting. That price range lines up with what a national boom in art vending machines typically charges: Charlotte's Charlotte Observer reported that Loot Drop Art Club, which has installed machines at 10 locations across the region, sells local art in the same $8 to $20 range. The Observer described the format as part of a broader national trend stretching from Portland to Philadelphia and New York.
A Growing National Movement
Chain Letter Gallery is joining what has become a fast-spreading phenomenon. USA Today reported that hundreds of art vending machines have popped up across the country in recent years, including more than 200 Art-o-mats worldwide that distribute $5 artworks from roughly 400 artists. The outlet also profiled artist Anastasia Inciardi, who said she owns more than 80 vending machines nationally and sells about 100,000 $1 prints every month, and detailed how Chicago's Good Things Vending repurposed old snack machines into a cheaper, scalable alternative to opening a traditional storefront.
Similar setups have surfaced well beyond California and the Carolinas. A Las Vegas operation called Gallery to Go uses snack vending machines to sell local artists' work at three locations, per KTNV. In Tucson, mini art-print machines at 1989 Bake House and Bookman's sell $1 original art, according to Tucson Spotlight, while Long Beach-based Moonlight Vending runs a collection of custom machines that sell work from local artists and creators instead of snacks and drinks, per the Arts Council for Long Beach.
What's Next for Chain Letter Gallery
Fontanilla is not planning to stop at two artists. She is inviting other local artists to participate, with submissions accepted through a form on the project's Instagram page, and she plans to expand the machine's offerings to include tattoo art and three-dimensional pieces. Any 3D work will need to be sturdy enough to survive the drop from the machine's rack onto the tray below, the Press Democrat reports.
Beyond the vending machine, Fontanilla's creative résumé includes building a vaudeville-style stage with tree-stump seating for performance art at Burning Man and contributing to a coffee-table book of Bill Murray paintings, according to the outlet's reporting. Cooperage Brewing Company, where the machine sits, is located at 575 Ross St. in downtown Santa Rosa. Chain Letter Gallery keeps hours of 2 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, noon to midnight Friday and Saturday, and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday — meaning a pint and a piece of original art are available on the same trip, any day of the week.
