These viral vending machine's dispense tiny pieces of joy Karissa Waddick, USA TODAYSeptember 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM 0 WASHINGTON – A small red vending machine, tucked away in a corner of the United States Botanic Garden's gift shop, captivated passersby on a recent humid Sunday afternoon.
- - These viral vending machine's dispense tiny pieces of joy
Karissa Waddick, USA TODAYSeptember 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
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WASHINGTON – A small red vending machine, tucked away in a corner of the United States Botanic Garden's gift shop, captivated passersby on a recent humid Sunday afternoon.
Two young women stood in front, plopped two tokens into a metal belt, pressed a lever, and watched as a credit-card-sized piece of cardboard slid out. They opened it and found a slip of paper with an illustration of a black swallowtail butterfly. Then they repeated, the second time discovering a print of tomatoes.
One of the women, 21-year-old Emily Wartel, said the machine reminded her of 25-cent pencil dispensers in her elementary school.
"This is awesome because they're mini and so accessible," Wartel, who lives in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, said of the art, which she plans to use as a bookmark.
The art vending machine inside the botanic garden is one of hundreds that have popped up across the country over the last few years, as young people search for inexpensive ways to buy and sell original pieces of art. Art vending machines aren't a new concept – they've been around for decades. But with the help of social media, they've begun to captivate a new audience.
Paige Stewart, who works at the gift shop inside the botanic garden, said the vending machine is one of the store's most popular items. Often, Stewart said, people visit the botanic garden just to see the art dispenser, owned by Portland, Maine, artist Anastasia Inciardi.
Lila Weingarten, a freshman at George Washington University studying environmental science, stopped by Inciardi's machine before touring the botanic garden.
"I follow the person on Instagram who sets them up, and I have been looking to find one," she said, holding a print of flowers in her hand.
Anastasia Inciardi started her mini print art vending machine business in 2022 and now owns more than 80 machines across the country. On average, her machine in the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. sells about 100 prints a day.Viral success
Inciardi launched her first vending machine filled with linocut prints of food in 2022 as a way to get quarters for her laundry machine. Now, she owns more than 80 vending machines across the country and has partnered with major brands, like Chase Bank and HBO. Inciardi, who employs six people to help with the mini print machines, said she sells roughly 100,000 of the $1 pieces each month.
That success is thanks, in part, to a viral video Inciardi posted after she started her mini print vending machine business that has garnered more than 17 million views. Young people, like Weingarten, still find the machines through social media, Inciardi said.
"A lot of people like to post about going to the vending machines and that surprise of getting those prints and sharing ... them with their friends," Inciardi said, "It's a real community builder."
There's an irony to the machines in that their popularity is also driven by people's love of old-school, mechanical items, like record players, in the digital age.
"There's almost nothing you can get for four quarters anymore," Inciardi said. "It's pretty special that you can use something so tactile to get a work of art."
A new way of doing business
A quick search on TikTok for "art vending machine" reveals countless videos of people retrofitting old vending machines to sell stickers, jewelry, art prints and other artisan goods.
Around the same time Inciardi began installing her art machines on the East Coast, Stephanie Krim was launching her own project in Chicago called Good Things Vending.
Krim, 35, said she came up with the idea to turn snack vending machines into art and oddities shops in 2018, after she left a job in the hospitality industry. She bought her first machine in 2019 but didn't launch until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Steph Krim, 35, founded Good Things Vending in 2018 as a way to sell art, vintage items and other goods across Chicago. Krim places the items in traditional snack vending machines. She has nine locations across the city, including at the Garfield Park Conservatory.
By the time her business took off in 2021, Krim said she began to notice similar vending-machine projects starting in other cities. With real estate and rent prices on the rise, Krim said the vending format has offered people like her a cheap, scalable alternative to opening a traditional storefront.
"There are a lot of people who have always wanted to start businesses that are … thinking about this as a way for them to tiptoe into building something of their own," she said.
Giving artists a platform
Some of the first art vending machines began appearing three decades ago. Artist Clark Whittington, for example began repurposing cigarette vending machines into small art shops, called Art-o-mats, in the late 1990s in North Carolina.
At the beginning, Whittington said the idea was aimed at giving artists "a platform not just to show their work but to sell their artworks."
More than 200 Art-o-mats across the world now distribute $5 artworks from about 400 artists.
Emily Wartel, 21, bought several prints from Inciardi's machine, including one of a black swallowtail butterfly.
He views the proliferation of machines, spurred by social media, as largely positive.
"I'm not going to be able to do it forever, so it's kind of nice that this format exists," Whittington said.
"Everybody wants to sell to the rich people and honestly, I couldn't care less," he added. "People don't need to spend $1,000 on a painting. That's why we're here."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Viral vending machines dispense artworks for a few quarters
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