mazza studio
the story
Typical in that way.
both bikes were made in '71 (probably),
but the top bike has more wheels
Born in Great Neck, Long Island.
Moved almost immediately upstate, and only a little later to the (even more) rural Dilly Road north east of Binghamton, NY. All in all, happy enough childhood. Lot's of outdoors time, good union family, many pets. Your basic traditional bucolic upbringing.
His first school was Harpursville (except for a couple years in Cornwall on the Hudson). At some point Harpursville High wasn't working out so well and he started commuting the ten miles to Windsor High.
Of course like most kids he spent many of his high school years working as a barely-competent roadie for heavy metal cover bands you've never heard of like "Bad Boy" and "Echo Ledge", imprinting on two of his favorite comfort foods: music and dive bars.
Art school was inevitable. His first year at Syracuse University there were shanty towns on campus as part of the South African divestment movement and as time went on he experienced a standard exposure to feminist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anarchist principles. These may have influenced his slow psychological decline from polite society. Unbeknownst to him some of the politics stuck, which probably doesn't speak well to the quality of his college beer.
You can probably guess the rest. He moves to San Francisco, moves back. Moves home, leaves. He starts bartending to support art-making but when a fun-loving resistance kicks in at the start of the first Gulf War, he joins the Non-violent Action Collective for-to-make street theater and activism. The next six years are a bit hazy but there is some evidence he was working as the staff-person for the Syracuse Peace Council, and co-coordinating the collectively-run Altered Space Community Arts with some of his favorite people—a project pursuing often successful attempts to get both the trained and untrained to make things they call art, share those things with other people, and muck around in the world.
Then it's a predictable move to Brooklyn where he tries works on an "art in the service of life" theory, volunteering deisign and crafting with musicians, artists, writers and activists. During that time he's read some stuff, seen some art, listened to music, met some great people and did a bunch more stuff that possibly isn't relevant or might be too personal to share here. Some, if not all, of those things that were happening, still happen, and might be happening now.
If you think about it a little bit, it's not so far-fetched.
- > bill@mazzastudio.com
- 135 ocean parkway #15E brooklyn, ny 11218
- 718.804.0292