Reply on : 5-5-1995 (internet)

CW: Yes, my archive takes up a lot of space on shelves, in cabinets, inbookcases, and fileboxes. Having an organized archive has saved me hours oftime searching for materials, but what hours I've saved have been spentorganizing the Eternal Network Archive and I've been doing such with aHypercard database for over three years now. I'm proud of what I'veaccomplished, but the price has been a tremendous amount of time andenergy.

I have sections of my archive devoted to Mail Art Projects, 3-D objects, MailArt Catalogues, Zines, Books, audio cassettes, posters, T-Shirts, Videos,Artistamps (The International Register of Artistamps), The NetworkerDatabank, and Fluxus related materials. Files from 1978-1991 includenumerous materials collected from old correspondences with over 300 mailartists from fifty countries. Those materials sit in eight large fileboxes andin a crammed closet I haven't reached yet.

From 1991 to present I've assembled 145 catalogued folders, each folderrepresenting a week of mail art. All of the items in these stuffed folders arerecorded by the day, month, and year each arrived, ie materials arriving onMay Day 1995 are tagged 050195. The database reflects this number and thelast name of each sender. In an instant I can scan my files and tell you whatmail I received on any day of the year, or I can reveal how much interactionI've had with other network friends.

Why do I do it? As a child I was a compulsive stamp collector. I lovedmaking books, saving correspondences and drawings. I've always been apackrat and I know many other mail artists with the same proclivity. Butcollecting isn't my passion! I collect mail art because have an abiding beliefthat what we and our network mail art friends are doing is important art inthe age we live in. That is, to give our works is a radical act. Nobody else inthe mainstream does that because if they did it would undermine the entirecommodity art system. I don't create mail art to collect it. My biggest love isgiving my work to others and collaborating with other artists.

I stay on top of nearly all the mail art I get, so I'm never behind on thecataloguing. Last year I catalogued 1,500 pieces of mail art and I mailed outthat much too. Sounds like lots, but I know of other mail artists who aremore prolific that I. I spend too much money on mail art.

Somewhere along the line I'll decide to quit doing this librarian's work. I'man artist and this is my first love, not bookkeeping. So if it gets to be toomuch, I'll stop. I'll know when that time comes. My publisher tells me that inthe creation of "Eternal Network Mail Art Anthology" they amassed a hugecollection of ephemera, more than any other publication they've everproduced.

From the investigations I've made about mail art archives, I'm certain thatthe Eternal Network Archive is the largest private catalogued mail artcollection in the United States. The Networker Databank (in duplicate)collection alone includes over 2,000 networker congress items donated to theUniversity of Iowa's Alternative Traditions in the Contemporary ArtsArchive, plus records mailed to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Because my space is limited, I'm selective about what I receive. I'm not veryinterested in picked over, rejected items that would have found their wayinto someone's garbage bin. I do save, however, all mail art catalogues,videos, zines and artistamps that are donated to the Eternal NetworkArchive.

RJ: How do you archive your electronic Mail? Do you just extract theASCII-part and save this or do you also collect all the 'bits and bytes' thatcome along with it?

Reply on: 7-5-95 (internet)

CW: The electronic mail is filed (ASCII) on disk in chronological order byday, month, year, similar to the way I archive all my traditional mail art copy.

RJ: You say you do save all mail art catalogues. What kind of catalogues doyou like the most?

Reply on: 7-5-95 (internet)

CW: I like them all, really, but I certainly appreciate those with some effortand originality beyond the usual listing of names and addresses. Guy Bleuscreates some of the most eloquent, beautiful mail art documentation in thenetwork. His recent "In Memory of Ray Johnson" is a beautiful, lyrical work.Gianni Broi's "La Posta in Gioco" (1990) is one of the most beautiful mailart show catalogues ever made, perhaps rivaled by Peter R. Meyer's "MailedArt in Uppsala" (1994). Andrej Tisma has a proclivity for creating wonderfulmail art show documents too. His "Nature Gives" International Mail-ArtExhibition Catalogue is a case in point.

I have about 300 mail art catalogues in the Eternal Network Archive. Butthere are another 300 mail art project documents too, and I like these aswell, if not better than the exhibition catalogues. Some of the projects I'vegrown to love over the years are Pawel Petasz' works, Edguardo Vigo'sinternational stamp projects, and more recently Rea Nikonova's superb"Double" assembling projects. I love Mail Art Assemblings like PascalLenoir's "Mani Art," Baroni's "Arte Postale," M.B. Corbett's"Tensetendoned," Dirk Frohlich's Buchlabor assemblings, Bruno Pomney's"Lola Fish" also and many others.

RJ: Sometimes an organizer of a mail-art show makes a beautiful catalogand then offers it for sale to the participants. You surely know LonSpiegelman's views in the 80-ies, that "Mail art & money don't mix". Whatare your views? How are things in the 90-ies?

Reply on 6-6-1995

CW: The death of Ray Johnson, January 13th, 1995 has proven that mail artand money make a nice honey pot. Ray's early letters and postcards can gofor $300,00 a piece. In the last 3 years as many as five dealers have beenselling mail art archival materials. It is mail artists who sell the archives so Ithink Spiegelman's ism is hardly a mail art altruism. A myth, perhaps.

Italian painter Paolo Barrile invited mail artists to submit work to his "EarthAge Plastic Age" project and is now asking these participants to help pay forthe catalogue book. I think that's a cheap shot, paying for one's book on thebacks of those who submitted artwork that will be used. That's not how Iproduced Eternal Network. All essayists received free copies. Eventually,those who sent artwork will get copies too. And it is very costly, we havegiven away nearly 20% of the edition!!! Maybe this is why so few publisherstake on mail art books.

Barrile wrote to me that, "I haven't any publisher, any sponsor, bank,collector, gallery behind me. He claimed a thousand reasons, including hishigh blood pressure, for not being able to afford publishing. My question issimple, why didn't Barrile just be honest in the beginning and tell mailartists they wouldn't get a free copy in X-change for their work. Honesty canbe respected but Barrile went about it all wrong. He is as bad as the artsystem that juries artists by slide, charging them to help finance the show,and then rejecting their work. I hate this form of chicanery and it is a bigreason why I left the art system years ago!

RJ: During this interview you managed to get you own homepages on theInternet and started the EMMA. In my eyes the homepages are a strangestep in mail art. The sender is preparing something, but then the receiverhas to reach out and get the homepages himself. The sending ofinformation/graphics/etc. isn't automatically there in homepages. Thehomepages look like a cybergallery but with a completely different access-level for all. What is the function of homepages for email-art?

CW: Ruud, I don't know how many homepages you've browsed on the WorldWide Web, but I will have to tell you from my experience that the sending ofinformation/graphics etc. IS there on World Wide Web homepages IF thehomepage creator provides for such access. Conceptually, EMMA pokes funat the idea of museums, and since she is an electronic museum there iscertainly more to her than looking at a cybergallery.

Home pages are powerful, interactive pages utilizing hypertext tags. Homepages on the World Wide Web require addresses as in traditional snailmail art. The World Wide Web homepage address is known as a URL(Uniform Resource Locator). Without a URL there can be no homepage. Asin snailmail, the address is the art. Placing a homepage on the Web is alsolike posting a message except the website can also be an interactive mailboxwhereby viewers are given a window to create and transmit email to thewebsite artist. In one sense you could call a website mail art's newhyper-media post office where the community can once again gather toexchange ideas, debate, gossip, greet one another, and co-create on visualand textual art projects. Sight and sound are now possible points for realtime interaction on internet websites. Websites will be wonderful mail artresource centers for community access in the global village.

I've created a cyberspace Artistamp Gallery as one of the rooms in EMMAand there I've posted an invitation to participate in "Cyberstamps," mail art'sfirst exhibition on the World Wide Web. Artoposto has sent a stamp encodedas a GIF which I've decoded and placed in the Artistamp Gallery.Cyberstamps can be created on or offline, so I'm inviting all mail artists tocontribute to the exhibition. It's a great way to have your artwork shown to ahuge international online audience. So send your stamps to Cyberstamps, POBox 370, Etna, NH 03750, or as GIFS via email [email protected]. Deadline will be November 1, 1995. Ohyes, not having a computer isn't an excuse for not entering!

Increasingly, you'll be finding mail artists without computers gaining accessto internet through those who do - there's the inherent generosity andgoodwill among mail artists that will generate that possibility. The ElectronicMuseum of Mail Art, the first World Wide Web site entirely devoted to mailart in cyberspace, will be a forum, gallery space, and meeting place for allmail artists. At this early stage, I've used my website to help interconnectwebsite artists, unix artists, and commercial internet servers. Currentpostings in the Emailart Directory alert online artists to the existingcyberspace (internet) community of mail artists (numbering about 200). Mymail art website has since March, incited other online mail artists such asGeORge Brett to revamp their websites to include mail art. Mark Bloch justwent online May 1, and James Warren Felter, a well known artistampcurator, phoned last week to say he would be placing a homepage on the webnext month. Mario Lara, longstanding California mail artist, sent email todaynotifying me of his new online address. There are scores of North Americanmail artists linking to the internet every day. I think Telenetlink has been agood motivator for progressive mail artists who have taken up theTelenetlink challenges. It has created a great deal of controversy, especiallyas related in Gianni Broi's new edition "Alternative Creativity and HumanValues: Free Dogs in the Galaxy." In that book, Broi comments that "theTelenetlink project by Chuck Welch can be defined as 'acceleratedconversion.'" Mail art in cybespace has broadened the horizons of what itmeans to be a mail art networker."

RJ: I'm also very much interested in statistics. Could you tell me how muchE-mail, snail-mail & visitors to your homepages you got in June. Whichpercentage of the mail did you answer or will you finally be able to answer?

Reply on 28-07-1995

(Besides this e-mail Chuck also sent a snail-mail with a sample-list of the e-mail he receives)

CW: Like you, I get a lot of junk emailart. I'd say roughly the same amountof worthless, thoughtless junk I get in the postal mailstream. I just don't havetime to answer anything that doesn't show creative initiative, curiosity, orgenuine person-to-person warmth and interaction. I love gettingcorrespondence art, but so few send it. So what do I do with stuff I can't orwon't answer? I put it in the trash can by my desk or the trash can icon onmy PC.

How many visit me via email as a result of the Electronic Museum of MailArt on the World Wide Web? There's a way to tell at Dartmouth College,but I haven't had time to check. When I arranged a website at ArleenSchloss' May 20th exhibition at A's Gallery (SoHo, NYC), "Hommage to RayJohnson." Judith Hoffberg emailed me that she helped many in attendanceaccess my website "Tribute to Ray Johnson." This emailart exhibition is stillposted on the World Wide Web at the Emailart Gallery:http://mmm.dartmouth.edu/pages/user/cjkid/EmailartGallery.

Back to your question. I'd say I get ten emailart messages a day. Manycontacts are in response to my website, my mail art edition "EternalNetwork," or to my own queries in cyberspace. In comparison, I get about sixor seven pieces of snail mail each day. Today I got eight pieces of snail mail,half from Europe. I gotta tell ya, I can't continue to pay the current postagerates. Just last week the United States Postal System hiked their overseasairmail rates from 50 cents per half oz. to 60 cents. Rates to Canada changedfrom 40 cents per half oz. to 46 cents. The cost of a postcard to Canadajumped up 25% from 30 cents a card to 40 cents. This makes my emailart avery competitive second choice to mail art.

Hey, I've got a new "Netshaker Online" ready for you. The current issue isabout Clemente Padin's work bringing Telenetlink to South America. MaybeI'll have that issue to you by tonight. Just read your "Mail-Interview WithRod Summers" and found one of your questions rather strange. You stated,"Last year Crackerjack Kid tried to start the TELENETLINK 95 project. I"mnot sure if it really started or not. I was surprised by the question becauseobviously during the months that have elapsed in this interview, you'veknown all about Telenetlink. You have told me and written many times inyour publications that you are a participant in the Networker Telenetlink 95.Are you, and if so, how are you helping to bring the Telenetlink concepts tothe European mail art community? Also, when are you going to send me a"cyberstamp" GIF for Mail Art's first online mail art exhibition?

RJ: Well, I will answer you questions by separate mail, but here is my nextquestion for you. I know that some mail-artists sold or traded their mail-artarchive to the postal museums. Do you think this is a good thing to do?

CW: I hadn't heard about mail art archives purchased by postal museums.What parties are you referring to? Without knowing the names or reasons forthose mail artists who are selling/trading their personal archives, I can'tmake a judgment as to whether such activities are good or bad.

I suppose there isn't much I can do if you wanted to destroy your ownarchive. There have been mail artists who have performed such acts. I oncehad a girlfriend I wrote to while I served in Vietnam. When I came home wedated awhile and months later broke up. Then years later I asked if shewould xerox certain of my letters containing poems and drawings. Shereplied that her ex-husband in a fit of jealousy burned every letter I evermailed. I was outraged and felt that an old sacred bond had been violated bya stranger. Don't you think that letters and art are gifts of the heart?

I guess there's always the risk that some mail artists are not above rippingyour heart out. Ray Johnson called last year complaining that other mailartists were selling his postcards for up to $300.00 each. He said, "They can'tdo that, I want to stop it from happening." I said, "You have two choices: 1)start placing copyright notices with each work, or 2) stop mailing art" Whatis left of mail art when it becomes a copyright? Where is the cutting edge atthat point?

You have the right to sell my "gifts" if that is your objective, but anyonedoing such is going to have trouble maintaining connections in the network.As you know, word gets out fast in the network. Of course, if you drop out ofthe network, what others think may not matter to you at all. I know a lot ofmail artists who feel they have earned the right to sell their archives. Mosteverything in an archive was acquired through a great amount of personalcost in time, energy and finances. I'm certain, for example, there are somemail artists who are holding their archives like an IRA retirement account.

RJ: What will be the future of your archive?

Reply on 23-8-1995 (internet)

CW: I have given away The Networker Databank to the University of Iowa's"Alternative Traditions in the Contemporary Arts Archive" but I willcontinue to maintain the Eternal Network Archive as long as I'm involved inmail art. At present it is the largest catalogued mail art archive in NorthAmerica. As such, I hope it will become an important center for study andresearch to anyone interested in the role of the networker.

RJ: Well, I guess it's now time to end this interview. Maybe there issomething I forgot to ask you?

Reply on 29-8-1995 (internet)

CW: Hey Ruud, you've got so many questions and I've got to go change thetriplet's diapers. I s'pose that's a good enough reason to end the talk. Goodluck with all your other interviews in netland and I hope other mail artistswill appreciate the hard work you're doing. I do. See you in the mailstreams(cyberspace & mail artdom).

RJ: Thanks for the interview!

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