Bathtub Splashin' Memories

It is so odd, the things that stick in our heads when we are kids.  My earliest memories are from before I started Kindergarten.  This had to be about 1959 or 1960.  I remember that surrounding our bath tub, we had different random color tiles on the wall, and I must have just discovered how vending machines worked, as I remember "pushing" them, pretending they were vending machine buttons.  (The sad part is, I was pretending to get cigarettes from a machine, as I'd seen my mom do, and as I viewed her as the epitome of sophistication at the time, naturally wanted to emulate her habits!)  Joanie on Mad Men would have had nothing on my mom, in my child's mind, in those days.

Chalkware was a big part of home decor back in those days, mainly on bathroom walls, but also in hallways, and pretty much throughout the house.  Of course, I had no name for it back then - but it was everywhere, running from graceful to kitchy.  Whatever the featured pieces, they were a big part of my earliest home decorating awareness!    In my home, it was the playful, roundish sets of fish in the bathroom.  (I know all of you of a certain age remember them!)   They came in blue and pink, I think, ours were teal blue - swimming around a set of chalkware "bubbles" - each piece hung separately as if the wall was their very own big lagoon, surrounding our bath tub!  They had such happy little faces!  I think I still have one of my mother's fish around somewhere - I really should look for it. 

Meanwhile, I have just listed a somewhat more elegant set of chalkware cockatoos, created by Miller Studio in 1961.  These have survived the years wonderfully, and just as the fish, have taken me back.  Ah, those sweet early 60s, when our only concerns were crayons, folding books, and birthday parties in crinoline dresses!  :D  More details are available on this set in my shop - just click on Pear Tree Vintage at right of the screen.