Like Drawing Dicks? Florida Vending Machine Company Looking for Art
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In a short nine months, Florida based Lucid Vending Machine company has re-branded and energized the category.
What started as one machine inside “Studios at 5663” art space in Pinellas Park has expanded to seven machines currently operating in bars, cafes and art spaces, with an eighth soon to come at The Factory St. Pete. The goal of Lucid Vending machines founders is to promote art, adventure and exploration in the Sunshine City.
“When the pandemic hit, it really got us into gear,” Chance Ryan, who co-founded Lucid Vending with his partner Kayla Cox, tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
They were living in St. Augustine at the beginning of 2020 and wanted to move to a city that would be better suited for their artistic pursuits. They found that in St. Pete, where their machines have been welcomed with open arms by artists and small business owners.
In the spaces they inhabit, Lucid’s machines stand out. Wild designs by local artists and eccentric decorations catch visitors’ eyes, thus the name “Lucid”.
Cox is an artist herself, which helped spark the idea to create the project. “I make a lot of art, a lot of random things, and having to sit in a market or try to sell it online is just never really been anything I’ve been interested in,” she says.
That’s when the pair realized vending machines could be a possibility for artists like Cox, who makes earrings and jewelry that can be found inside the machines.
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Now in what they confess is “kind of a big ask,” the overlord of several vending machines stocked with local art and strategically placed across the Bay area—has an open call for dick art, which will live inside a machine that’s supposed to land at St. Pete gay bar Cocktail.
“We’re looking for artwork that features some dick/homo-erotic [aspect] that we can purchase wholesale,” Kayla Cox and Chance Ryan, owners of Lucid Vending, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The art in their machines is capped at $20, so ideally, the art would be original work that can retail for $20, or prints that can retail for around $10. Lucid offers a 50-50 split with artists, who must slide in with at least 10 pieces to start.
Naturally, dick art should fit within the vending machine slots, which are all different sizes (5-by-7, 4-by-6, and 3-by-5 inches). Girth of anything that goes into the vending machine slots should be no thicker than two inches—reasonable, right?
“We recommend checking out one of our machines to get an idea for packaging. All prints should be wrapped in cellophane and be adhered to a sturdy backing (cardboard works) and include contact information,” Cox and Ryan added.
All artistic mediums will be considered, if you’re ready to rise to the occasion and put some skin in the game.
