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» Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Calling All Cows...

a.k.a. "Till the Cows Come Home"

If you read a long post I made back early this year, you’ll know as styles of decorating go, I like “country” best. Not the cute frills, flowers, ruffles, and Mary Engelbreit stuff, but gingham, Shaker lines, country farmhouse, comfy stuff.

Way back when I wanted to dress up the light/ceiling fan fixtures I bought inexpensive decorative pull handles for the chains: geese to match the geese on the light cover in the master bedroom, etc. For the kitchen, I found a affable-looking black-and-white cartoon cow with a little bird fluttering over it; it made sense as much as I liked milk! It was cute but not overbearingly so.

Later the kitchen began to take on an apple motif that we both liked, as eventually we are planning to paint it a Granny Smith apple green that a red apple motif would go well with it. But I wanted something else there, a secondary motif, and some cows seemed perfect: I painted a Holstein-like cow and some apples on the top of a cookie jar and made a cow toothpick holder.

Last November at the “Christmas in Lithia” craft fair we came upon a woman selling ceramic kitchen accessories; one of her themes was cute cartoon cows. We bought a lidless jar to put on the stove to keep wooden spoons in and discovered that the cows on it matched the one on our ceiling fan pull.

We could have “cowed out” on her stuff at this year’s craft fair, but got only what we needed: a measuring spoon holder and a spoon rest for the stove. We didn’t need a creamer or sugar bowl or napkin holder, yet the little cow design is quite appealing. Since we had found this same cow motif in two different places, was it possible that it is copyright free or sold somewhere for use on ceramics, wallpapers, etc?

Just for the heck of it, I searched for +cartoon +cow in Google and came up with more of these same cartoon cows--on piece of china being sold in Great Britain! Here they are. And again.

So evidently this motif is available somehow to be used on ceramic items. I wonder how and where one would find it. There doesn’t seem to be any artist’s name associated with them. Anyone know whose design this is or where it comes from? Feedback appreciated.