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The bodyless Ray Johnson bunny is something like a genetic mutant mickey mouse engineered to be a rabbit, or visa versa. Johnson has claimed the cartoon tag to be personal self portraits varied by the daily mood changes in his life. Ray Johnson has drawn "how to make Ray Johnson bunnies step by step," a parady similar to correspondence art school ads challenging readers to "draw this portrait" and return for analysis. Indeed, through the years Johnson regularly asked friends and strangers alike to alter his bunny heads, what Ray termed as "add-ons." At other times the bunnies were assigned the names of persons either famous, unknown, or known only to Ray and his circle of friends, collectively known as the New York Correspondence School.

The bodyless Ray Johnson bunny is something like a genetic mutant mickey mouse engineered to be a rabbit, or visa versa. Johnson has claimed the cartoon tag to be personal self portraits varied by the daily mood changes in his life. Ray Johnson has drawn "how to make Ray Johnson bunnies step by step," a parady similar to correspondence art school ads challenging readers to "draw this portrait" and return for analysis. Indeed, through the years Johnson regularly asked friends and strangers alike to alter his bunny heads, what Ray termed as "add-ons." At other times the bunnies were assigned the names of persons either famous, unknown, or known only to Ray and his circle of friends, collectively known as the New York Correspondence School.

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-Carole Bombard-

-Ray's Johnson's "Carole Bombard" copier art was mailed to me June 14, 1993 with the following inscription written by Ray on a page torn from a Spanish phone directory: "The 'Soon It Will Be Show Time Again' theme song is by Kenneth Patchen." The idosyncracies of Ray Johnson's mailings are always tailor made to the recipient receiving them, even if the contents are merely copies of copies, the content is both direct and calculated. In A Conversation With R. Pieper" Johnson stated: "I keep saying to people who want to find out about the Correspondence School (NYCS) that the only way to truly understand it is through participation, because what I do is made for each person. When I'm speaking to you, I am creating this composition for you by telephone, on the spot."(1)-

-(1) Donahue, Bonnie and Ed Koslow, ed. "Mail Art Etc.," Exhibition catalogue published by University of Colorado,
Tyler School of Art, and Florida State Universsity, 1984. p. 15.-

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-The "Tides Motel Meeting" is an example of Ray Johnson's add-on stragegy of using a third person as an intermediary, in this instance Crackerjack Kid. Johnson's pen inscribed instructions can be seen through the paper in reverse; "Please send to Fa Ga Ga Ga." In this particular mailing, all parties were known to one another and Crackerjack Kid was aware that Youngstown, Ohio lawyer Mark Corroto (a.k.a. Fa Ga Ga Ga) had meet with Ray Johnson, presumably in Bayville, New York.-

-Crackerjack Kid's intervention included changing the bunny faces into cow teets, changing "New York" to "Moo York," and Bayville to Bovine, N.Y. Not wanting to be left out of the Tides Motel Meeting, Crackerjack masked out a name adding his own to the last bunny face in the lower right hand corner of the page. That done, the Kid xeroxed and mailed two copies; one to Ray Johnson and the other to Fa Ga Ga Ga (Mark Corroto).-

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In a matter of days, Ray Johnson shot back his add-0n "corrections" to Crackerjack Kid. "The kid's "Moo York" remained unchanged, but Johnson applied correction fluid over "Bovine, N.Y." and inscribed "Bouvier, N.Y." The gameplay on words grew when Johnson wrote "Boy, Gurl" with the cow teet determining gender spelling. The kid's nom de plume, normally a genderless pseudonym, was altered to "Cracker Jacqueline." Crackerjack responded with a rubberstamp "Cowlicks Issue," placed in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet, as if to certify the official closure of the correspondence triage.

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Rumors of Ray Johnson's death spread instantly throughout the mail art network when a triangular death stamp appeared in 1989. Johnson was legendary for pulling pranks like killing his New York Correspondence School in a "New York Times" obituary (April 5, 1973) and then instantly rebirthing it as "Buddha University." The legendary "Death Stamp" was created as a ruse by Johnson, living then as a "living dead legend." When Johnson died on January 13, 1995, many friends, including me, were skeptical of the news thinking it was just another ploy, prompting the immediate response, "This time he's REALLY DEAD." Within days after Ray Johnson's death, I received a spooky letter with Johnson's return address and his handwritten inscription, "I Am Dead." Later, the network learned that California mail artist Johnny Tostada mailed the fake letters in the true Johnsonian spirit of playful parody.

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Ray Johnson's black self-portrait was a contribution to the "Netshakers Stamp Sheet," a grouping of 99 mail artist portraits arranged by Crackerjack Kid for "Netshaker" zine (Volume 3, No. 1). This May 1994 issue doubled as a show catalogue for Artists' Stamps: An International Mail Art Exhibition," hosted by AVA Gallery, Lebanon, NH, and curated by Crackerjack Kid. Johnson entered the exhibition in March 1994 and four months later mailed a letter addressed to me at AVA Gallery. On April 27, 1995 two days before I left for Ray Johnson's Memorial at Friends Meeting House in NYC, the AVA Gallery Director informed me I had an unopened letter from Ray Johnson. Holding the letter like a gift dropped from the sky, I carefully opened Ray's envelope and a smile wrinkled my face. This last piece of mail art from Ray Johnson, like his last self-portrait, was a message wrapped with time. Ray left me a last smile, a last pun, his last words post mortem, returned to sender; "AVA Gardner-AVA Gallery."

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