Mail artist and printmaker Chuck Welch flips through the book he edited about mail art, “Eternal Network, A Mail Art Anthology” at his home in Peterborough Thursday afternoon.
Chuck Welch makes a mail art collage envelope in his basement, using various stamps he created. Welch began his career with printmaking, but “rubber stamp-making was one of the first things that got me into mail art,” he said.
Chuck Welch holds up two floppy discs that were created by mail artist Charles Francois, while looking through his remaining archive in his basement in Peterborough on Thursday afternoon. Mail art can take many forms, including postcards, stamps, digital art and zines —or “just anything you can get away with sending in the mail,” Welch said while combing through his collection.
Chuck Welch unpacks “postcards and ephemera I’ve received in the past couple years” from a box of mail art in his basement. Welch explained that this is what his mail art storage often looks like before he begins the archiving process.
A collaborative piece of mail art, between Chuck Welch and E.F. Higgins, is displayed in Welch’s home in Peterborough, where he does his archiving work. Higgins visited Welch in Hanover to paint his portrait and incorporated a set of Welch’s stamps that he made in 1993 in the piece.
Chuck Welch gathers his cats Spicy, pictured, and Tormund Giantsmane in his kitchen in Peterborough Thursday afternoon. The walls in Welch’s home are decorated with art from family members and friends of the family.
Mail artist Chuck Welch looks through his remaining archive of mail art in his basement in Peterborough on Thursday afternoon. Most of Welch’s archive has been donated to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, which acquired more than 5,000 pieces from his collection, and the University of Iowa. Even though mail art is a simple concept, Welch sees it as a radical act because it is a gift and not a commodity.
Chuck Welch deposits 75 cents into his stamp machine — one of two that were an interactive part of his 2019 mail art exhibit at the Sharon Arts Center — and receives a Voodoo Monroe stamp that he created.
Chuck Welch created a “Boycott Exxon” stamp in 1989, days after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, using his moniker CrackerJack Kid. Welch mailed the stamps to various newspapers across the country to print, to keep people talking about the spill, after which he received inquiries about buying the stamps. In addition to sending the stamps to those interested, he strategically placed them in public spaces including on Exxon gas pumps.
Chuck Welch of Peterborough, in front of one of the posters of a mail art collage project created by mail artist Ryosuke Cohen that was shown during Welch’s exhibition at the Sharon Arts Center in 2019. The show, "Errors, Fakes and Oddities: An International Mail Art Exhibition," was curated by Welch’s daughter Lauryn Welch. The collages are collaborative pieces created by Cohen from stamps and prints of mail artists’ work from around the world.
Chuck Welch reads through a letter from prominent Argentinian artist Edgardo Antonio Vigo, whose son, Abel Luis Palomo, was disappeared at the age of 19 by the military junta in 1976. Vigo requested Welch make paper from the clothing his son wore the day he disappeared, during a time when Welch was making paper from clothes for his Material Metamorphosis project. Vigo then used the paper for a mail art project commemorating his son’s life.
Mail artist and printmaker Chuck Welch flips through the book he edited about mail art, “Eternal Network, A Mail Art Anthology” at his home in Peterborough Thursday afternoon.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Chuck Welch makes a mail art collage envelope in his basement, using various stamps he created. Welch began his career with printmaking, but “rubber stamp-making was one of the first things that got me into mail art,” he said.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Chuck Welch holds up two floppy discs that were created by mail artist Charles Francois, while looking through his remaining archive in his basement in Peterborough on Thursday afternoon. Mail art can take many forms, including postcards, stamps, digital art and zines —or “just anything you can get away with sending in the mail,” Welch said while combing through his collection.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Chuck Welch unpacks “postcards and ephemera I’ve received in the past couple years” from a box of mail art in his basement. Welch explained that this is what his mail art storage often looks like before he begins the archiving process.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
A collaborative piece of mail art, between Chuck Welch and E.F. Higgins, is displayed in Welch’s home in Peterborough, where he does his archiving work. Higgins visited Welch in Hanover to paint his portrait and incorporated a set of Welch’s stamps that he made in 1993 in the piece.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Chuck Welch gathers his cats Spicy, pictured, and Tormund Giantsmane in his kitchen in Peterborough Thursday afternoon. The walls in Welch’s home are decorated with art from family members and friends of the family.
Peterborough resident Chuck Welch has been participating in mail art — a global phenomenon in which creators exchange art through the mail — for nearly 50 years. He’s even donated more than 5,000 pieces of his collection to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
“You can get a prize every day in your mailbox,” he said. “… Some mail artists call it Christmas-time every day.”
An artist, musician, archivist, husband, father and more, Welch, 74, is known in the mail art community as the CrackerJack Kid because of his excitement in never knowing what he’s going to get.
He’s received posters, sculptures, paintings and other pieces over the years, and has sent and received art from all over the world, including Berlin, South Africa, Japan, Argentina, Ukraine and Hungary. As for what he’s sent out, he’s gravitated toward prints made from stamps he has created, which he said is a favorite medium.
Chuck Welch of Peterborough, in front of one of the posters of a mail art collage project created by mail artist Ryosuke Cohen that was shown during Welch’s exhibition at the Sharon Arts Center in 2019. The show, "Errors, Fakes and Oddities: An International Mail Art Exhibition," was curated by Welch’s daughter Lauryn Welch. The collages are collaborative pieces created by Cohen from stamps and prints of mail artists’ work from around the world.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Welch grew up in Nebraska, and taught high-school art in Omaha after getting his master of science at Kearney State College. He also has a master of fine arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
When he wasn’t teaching, Welch was practicing printmaking, in line with the focus of his undergraduate degree from Kearney State.
In the ’70s, Welch began making his own paper. In perfecting his craft, he went to many papermakers in the Midwest, trying to figure out how to put together a mill in his basement. He said he visited many prominent artisans and papermakers.
“During that time, it was really exciting for artists because papermaking was really taking off in a renaissance of activity and became a cottage industry where artists would set up their own mills, as I did,” he said.
He found a lot of creativity in what could be done with handmade paper, and enthusiasm for printing on it, painting on it and sculpting with it.
Chuck Welch reads through a letter from prominent Argentinian artist Edgardo Antonio Vigo, whose son, Abel Luis Palomo, was disappeared at the age of 19 by the military junta in 1976. Vigo requested Welch make paper from the clothing his son wore the day he disappeared, during a time when Welch was making paper from clothes for his Material Metamorphosis project. Vigo then used the paper for a mail art project commemorating his son’s life.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
He first encountered mail art while in graduate school by going to a show in Nebraska dedicated to the artform and curated by design researcher Ken Friedman.
More than 45 years later, Welch is still a mail art collector, creator and contributor, and described the networks of artists who swap work through the mail as more than pen pals. The exchange requires a back and forth of creativity, not just someone writing their thoughts.
“You give something of yourself, and you get something back in return,” Welch said. “So, mail art isn’t a history, it’s a present.”
Welch and his wife, Cathy, moved to Peterborough 23 years ago so she could work at Monadnock Community Hospital as an ophthalmologist. They have four children: Lauryn, and triplets William, Storm and Gwyneth.
In 2019, Welch curated a show with Lauryn, showcasing his archive and filling two floors of the Sharon Arts Center.
Lauryn, who lives in New York City, described her father’s archival endeavors as his life’s work.
Chuck Welch deposits 75 cents into his stamp machine — one of two that were an interactive part of his 2019 mail art exhibit at the Sharon Arts Center — and receives a Voodoo Monroe stamp that he created.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
“It’s a collection of many lives over a span of 40 years within a community not many people know about,” she said. “It’s enormously valuable, and a moving expression of my dad’s love for his community of mail artists.”
Welch said Josh Franco, a national collector for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, reached out after hearing about the show, and visited Peterborough to see his collection.
After Franco showed interest in acquiring items for the national archive, Welch agreed to donate 4 linear feet of his collection to preserve the mail art tradition and make it more widely accessible to the public.
Chuck Welch created a “Boycott Exxon” stamp in 1989, days after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, using his moniker CrackerJack Kid. Welch mailed the stamps to various newspapers across the country to print, to keep people talking about the spill, after which he received inquiries about buying the stamps. In addition to sending the stamps to those interested, he strategically placed them in public spaces including on Exxon gas pumps.
Hannah Schroeder / Sentinel Staff
Welch also donated his archive of mail artist correspondence from 1978 to the present—which contains letters and postcards from six continents — to the University of Iowa. He specifically sought out the university due to its leading art history program. These correspondences, which include a catalog of his responses, can be found in the Alternative Traditions in the Contemporary Arts collection.
A sampling of Welch’s collages, etchings, handmade paper and artist books were also donated to Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, which displays art made by Nebraskan artists.
“It means an awful lot to me to encourage some kind of legacy where people who were unaware of mail art, or academics who are interested in that area of art, can go to a place like the Smithsonian and sit down to go through the boxes as much as they want,” Welch said.
The mail art movement celebrates life and how differently people exist, he explained. There is enjoyment to be had in appreciating the ordinary.
“I’m living my life as a celebration of what I do and what my beliefs are,” Welch said. “… I think we would all get along better maybe if our religions and political beliefs wouldn’t get in the way, so we just see ourselves as being people doing ordinary things every day.”
Mail artist Chuck Welch looks through his remaining archive of mail art in his basement in Peterborough on Thursday afternoon. Most of Welch’s archive has been donated to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, which acquired more than 5,000 pieces from his collection, and the University of Iowa. Even though mail art is a simple concept, Welch sees it as a radical act because it is a gift and not a commodity.
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