Chuck Welch

Chuck Welch, also known as the CrackerJack Kid or Jack Kid, was born in Kearney, Nebraska in 1948. He wrote "Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology", with a foreword by Ken Friedman, which was published and edited by University of Calgary Press in 1995. The Eternal Network and the Crackerjack Kid were mentioned in a review of mail art titled "Pushing the Envelope" in 2001, and the archivist and curator Judith Hoffberg wrote about him in her publication ''Umbrella''. His awards include a Fulbright Grant and NEA Hilda Maehling Fellowship.

Chuck Welch chose the pseudonym "CrackerJack Kid" because as a mail artist he went to the mail box each day never knowing what surprise he was going to find inside. Welch was first exposed to mail art through the exhibition Omaha Flow Systems curated by Ken Friedman at the Joslyn Art Museum in Nebraska in 1973, and he became actively involved in fluxus mail art in 1978. Welch was a member of Ray Johnson‘s New York Correspondance School, also spelled "New York CorresponDance School". Both Welch and Johnson were in regular contact. Johnson kept mailing to Welch's daughter and referred to her as CrackerJack's Kid, and she became a mail artist, too. Welch participated in the exhibition ''Flux Flags'' in Budapest, Hungary in 1992. In 1997 he had a solo exhibition in Guy Bleus ' E-Mail Art Archives, Center for Visual Arts in Hasselt, Belgium. He wrote about Fluxus and Ray Johnson, as well as about global art zines. Provided by Wikipedia