365/2013 - Day 121

BUSY day!

I recently decided it was time for me to downsize a little with my hosting of Art-o-mat machines.  Buckety is going back to Clark Whittington/Artists in Cellophane and I am keeping Greeny (my "baby", my first machine).  Greeny was a great "fit" at the Northville Art House and I loved having him close by -- I truly appreciate the Art House's support and thank them for being a wonderful and fun location.  On the other hand, LIFT Designer Toys and Gallery in Royal Oak (where Buckety was) is a higher traffic venue.  If I am only going to host one machine, it really ought to be where a lot of people will use it -- and that is LIFT.  And for LIFT, it is like they are getting a "new" machine.  The really really cool thing about the machine being at LIFT is that being a designer toy store, LIFT's customers are already aware and comfortable with the blind box concept.  In the simplest terms, Art-o-mat is pretty much a blind box art vending machine.

So...

With the indescribably fabulous help of my friend Joshua (who is now a major wiz at moving my machines) we packed up Greeny for the ride to Royal Oak.

I rented an appliance dolly and some moving pads -- these pads are really great -- soft padded wool, not the scratchy quilted ones.  I made Joshua use extra padding and bungee cords for my baby Greeny.

Joshua tightening the straps on the dolly.

Aww...Carla...you can visit Greeny at LIFT.

Joshua secures Greeny in the bed of his truck...NO rolling around!

Greeny fully stocked at LIFT

Greeny is two columns smaller than Buckety -- he looks so small in comparison.

I was in a bit of a rush to empty Buckety and fill up Greeny so that Joshua could pack up Buckety and get him secured into his truck...I didn't get a chance to take any emptying-of-Buckety pictures.  We also needed to get back across town in time to beat heavy traffic (the highway was actually already a parking lot when we got on...we bounced back off at the first exit) and I needed to return the appliance dolly and moving pads before the rental placed closed for the evening.  We made it just in time -- whew!

Here is what is currently in Greeny at LIFT:

Sherry Paylor -- dog collages

Sue Clancy & Judy Sullens -- handcrafted books

Kelli Busch -- bicycle chain keychain

Took Gallagher -- Tookies finger puppets

Francine Hibiscus Rossi -- raku tiles

Maija Peeples-Bright -- fanciful, colorful animal paintings

Juana Moore -- Doll Party! paintings

Took Gallagher & William Hessian -- Penciled In colored pencil drawings

Ellen Miffitt -- sumi-e cats

I am getting all fired up about being more active with my Art-o-mat machine again...thinking of in-store promotions, etc.  I also want/need to go back into production on some of my Arto-series and I have lots of ideas for new prototypes.  

While Joshua and I were at LIFT there was a young woman customer talking with Ben and she was happy to see Greeny -- she was saying she hadn't seen an Art-o-mat machine in a while (I believe I heard her say she was from San Francisco...or that was the last place she saw a machine) but she knew what Art-o-mat was and she was going to come back in when the machine was fully stocked (I was still filling Greeny at that point and we were moving Buckety) and check it out!  And Ben is interested in making a prototype -- YAY -- we need more Michigan artists in the Artists in Cellophane project!!!