POSTALCREATIVITY
MAILARTCLUB

Excerpt from
"A Bit of PCMAC History"
by Franklin Stein, Poet, Philosopher and Founder

It was late April 1996 when the [AOL] International Mail Art board went silent. Throughout March, there had been debate, argument, acrimony, plain and fancy fights and finally disgust and silence. I assumed at the time, that this would lead to the IMA solely being a place for listing mail art calls without discussion. I thought cross-conferencing was gone for good. I was wrong.

I started my note on the IMA this way: "Hoo, Hah!! We made it in to 1996 and we're still talking about mail art. This has to mean something." The note continued by talking about the fings in the 1980s over every aspect of mail art, with discussion of some of the things mail artists had done. Closing my note with an invitation to come to the cafe in the spirit of art and artists throughout time and discuss mail art and art, but lighten up. I thought that would be the last I would hear about mail art and discussion. I was wrong.

The note seemed to have struck a chord. People started to write on the IMA board that they were happy to join with anyone who would talk about art in a non-flaming way. Before long we had a group of artists, both new to mail art and old pros, who joined together in what was to become the PCMAC network. This network was devoted to discussion and sharing of mail art.

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