Word is fast spreading about the first Art-O-Mat to come to Colorado — the retired cigarette-vending machine that dispenses $5 art is a popular draw at Access Gallery in the Santa Fe arts district.

“One woman came down from Frisco,” said gallery director Damon McLeese. “She runs a bookstore there and asked a customer what she should do on a free afternoon in Denver, and heard about what artists were doing here.”

There are more than 100 Art-O-Mat machines across the country, vending cigarette-pack-size fine art from locations as diverse as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and a Whole Foods Market in Houston.

The craze started in 1997, when North Carolina artist Clark Whittington got the idea to convert a recently banned cigarette-vending machine into a retro-chic method for dispensing palm-size art at affordable prices.

More than a decade later, the Art-O-Mat machines are still in demand. Twenty were installed in 2010, double the number of 2009. Last year, 16 new machines went into service.

“I saw one last spring in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian and thought it was really amazing,” McLeese said.

Art-O-Mat and Access Gallery share a mission: accessible art. So McLeese contacted Whittington about getting a machine.

The timing was perfect. A Kansas City gallery with an Art-O-Mat was going out of business, so McLeese offered to save shipping costs for the machine by driving to Kansas City and bringing it to Denver in his car.

The machine is a piece of art itself, painted by California graffiti artist Hieronymus.

At Access Gallery, it has been a great success.

“We get about 1,000 people in the door for First Friday, and most of them aren’t there to buy art,” he said. “They’re looking for a good time, the experience.”

But they line up to plug $5 tokens into the Art-O-Mat and see a piece of art drop down.

Half the machine is stocked with work by professional artists from Colorado and around the country. The other half is filled with pieces created by teens with disabilities who participate in the workshops and programs at Access. Artists receive 50 percent of the sale.

About 400 artists from 10 countries participate nationally.

Each piece of art is cellophane-wrapped, just like a cigarette pack. The art may include a selection of earrings made from computer chips, beaded key chains, illustrations of wolves and dragons, and intricate collages.

Access Gallery’s Art-O-Mat art includes colorful abstract pieces from a mural created by attaching rollers to a wheelchair, then having wheelchair artists ride over a blank canvas.

The machine is also stocked with work by local pros, including Andy Brzeczek, Jennifer Collins and Tony Ortega.

“Where else can you get a Tony Ortega for $5?” McLeese said of the Colorado artist whose work is owned by the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, and the Museo Estudio Diego Rivera in Mexico City.

Artist Phil Bender, who founded the contemporary art gallery Pirate in Denver, has already sold out an edition of his work. He’s busy making more.

“It’s exposure,” he said. “They’re international.”

He likes Art-O-Mat’s goal of encouraging art consumption “by combining the worlds of art and commerce in an innovative form,” as its website says.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “It’s better for you than cigarettes.”

Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com