Ray Johnson's Bunny
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.