Question: What does a former smoking lounge in the Baton Rouge airport need?

Answer: Clearly, it needs an Art-o-mat, a former cigarette vending machine turned into an art dispenser, which is exactly what the Baton Rouge Gallery at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport helped to unveil Tuesday morning. 

The first-ever airport art vending machine opened for business at a time when the airport’s director of aviation, Mike Edwards, said the airport is up to 91% of its pre-pandemic volume and touted American Airlines’ June 1 launch of Baton Rouge-direct-to-Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National daily flights, with a 5:42 a.m. departure and an evening return. 

Edwards and other area officials, including Jill Kidder, president/CEO of Visit Baton Rouge, were on hand for the Art-o-matic’s unveiling, in a nod to National Travel and Tourism Week, May 7-13. Kidder said new data shows that in 2022, 7.2 million visitors to Baton Rouge spent $450 million, providing savings of about $1,000 in tax dollars per household.

“Tourism makes us better,” Kidder said. 

Clark Whittington, creator of the Art-o-mat in 1997, assisted in the art vending machine’s reveal.

Jason Andreasen, president/CEO of the Baton Rouge Gallery, said Whittington contacted him within hours of the news back that the gallery was opening a location in BTR airport, saying an Art-o-mat had never been in an airport and he hoped they could make it happen.

“It’s a retired cigarette machine placed outside a retired smokers’ lounge,” Andreasen said. “The art could be equally addictive.”

The art, which sells for $5 a piece, comes in a small box, about the size of a cigarette box. The airport’s Art-o-mat is about the 200th one placed across the country, according to Whittington, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Two Baton Rouge-area artists provide art for Art-o-mat vending machines around the country.

Andreasen said the machines cost between $4,000 and $5,000 to place. Another Art-o-mat is at the Baton Rouge Gallery in City Park. Artists receive half the proceeds of the pieces they sell. 

The art available at the newest Art-o-mat appears to be all flight-related — from small paintings of hot air balloons, planes or birds to miniature papier-mâché bird sculptures. 

Debbie Daniel, of Baton Rouge, considers herself “a lover of all things Art-o-mat.” She has collected more than 100 of the diminutive works of art, which are on display in her home.

“I have them in my windows. I buy them for my grandchildren,” she said. “I can’t get enough of them. I need to go to AA — Art-o-mat Anonymous.”

Daniel said one of her favorite aspects of buying the pieces is after she opens the small box, takes in the artwork and then sends a note to the artist who created it to let them know where their piece of art ended up. Each piece of art comes with information about how to contact the artist. 

Andreasen said he and his staff will stock the machine at least once a month. 

“Once we get a handle on how much activity it gets, we’ll determine how often we refill it,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have to refill it all the time.”

Jim Caldwell, the airport’s marketing and public relations manager, said all indications show potential for great sales for the wee works of art, as he anticipates a busy summer of travel.