Fusion: A Magazine for Clay & Glass
Vol. 30, No. 2
Spring 2006
p. 25

When hare and human meet

By Regina Haggo


Forget bunny girls. Steve Mazza, a Hamilton sculptor who works with clay, creates bunny men.    

Mazza's bunny men are funny. He has fashioned other fantastical beings, some inspired by the grotesque stone characters found in medieval churches. But the bunny men look very ordinary, and their ordinariness ultimately elicits our sympathy, rather than our curiosity.

They are made from a white body clay which Mazza likes to have his hands in.

'For a while I was doing some raku finishes, so I started using the clay,' he says.  'I got used to the texture, and found it to be good for sculpture. It isnšt as groggy as some of the sculpture clays, but it still handles well in the kiln.  

'Sculpting clay is a rougher process than throwing clay on a wheel. The  thickness of the clay varies throughout, and I cut and reassemble a number of times before it is finished.'   

The bunnies look quite human, but each has a huge nose and only one human ear. Most have narrow, heavy-lidded eyes and they almost always keep their mouths closed and their lips set in a straight line.  

Mazza has cross-hatched the surface of each flesh-coloured head, so that it looks like skin, but magnified. This texture also suggests fur, however, and the figures are the size of rabbits, not people.

Two long ears on the top of the head give the men a distinctive bunny look. Unlike the ears worn by Playboy bunnies, these appear to grow out of their furry heads.      

Because Mazza's figures are clothed, we canšt tell whether they have fluffy tails. Each figure is neatly outfitted in grey trousers and black shoes. Most of them wear white shirts and ties, and some sport V-necked sweaters. The similarity of their clothes hints at uniformity and conformity.       

Animal-like figures in clothes are nothing new. Beatrix Potter's clothed animals were well-loved because they were a comforting sign of nature tamed and civilized.

Ancient Egyptian sculptors carved images of cat goddesses with long tight tunics. In fact, Mazza's figures have the look of modern cult statues with recognizable attributes and gestures. But while ancient deities' hand gestures referred to significant deeds and events, Mazzašs bunny men are associated with the most mundane of life's acts.      

The bunny man titled Waiting holds up his hand to look at his wrist watch, as though to reprimand the viewer for being late for some insignificant event. His right arm, resting straight at his side, makes him look uptight.

Fiddling plays with his orange and yellow striped tie. His ears are down and so are the corners of his mouth, making him look somewhat despondent. Another unhappy figure holds a traffic ticket, while a relieved one, ears and hands lowered, faces a urinal. Yet another, with a thoughtful look, sits on a toilet. The prurient viewer can easily discern that he is anatomically correct ‹ with human equipment.

Chocolate glazed, wearing a yellow V-necked sweater over a white shirt and red tie, holds a white mug in one hand and a cookie in the other. The small chocolate cookie seems like such a big treat, giving the activity an air of sadness.

Pathos is also evident in the figure sitting alone at a big table, and in the one who sits by himself on a bed, his hands folded demurely in his lap. After all, bunnies are supposed to be sex-mad and fertile, but the empty bed belies this image.    

Mazza, program director for Hamilton Artists Inc., an artist-run centre, fell in love with clay early on.

'I was lucky enough to go to a high school where there was a kiln available,' he remembers, 'but when I went to university it was frowned upon. The program was more conceptually oriented. Clay as a material was a little too 'traditional' for them.'

A few years passed before he renewed his relationship with clay. 'I'd been painting since university and was quite sick of what I was doing. I decided to return to a material process that I had a stronger connection to. I haven't stopped since.'


Regina Haggo, a former professor of art history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, teaches at the Dundas Valley School of Art and writes about art for The Hamilton Spectator and other publications.