I’m trying something new in the Etsy Shop. Recently I came across a large lot of Hummel Plates made by Danbury Mint in the late 1980’s – early 1990’s. It was one of those days when I was wandering around the thrift store, looking for any random object that needed to be rescued. These little plates were on a shelf in the back and I found them odd and captivating. I have to say, nothing about the Hummel designs have ever appealed to me. But these were… different. Especially this one…
This Hummel plate made by Danbury Mint is called “Little Goat Herder,” and I am so curious about the printing process. It looks like it was made with photoshop, and yet, photoshop wasn’t even released until 1990. Maybe the plates were based on actual paintings or illustrations but it doesn’t look that way to me. It looks like someone created a vignette in a lightbox (much like I like to do!) and then somehow transferred the digital image onto the plate. Look at the goat – it actually looks like a picture of a porcelain figure that was transferred to a porcelain plate. So meta! And very collage – like. Someday I will figure out how these were made, but for now the “not knowing,” contributes to my fascination with them.
They are all very cute but some of them are downright bizarre. Is it just me or does it look like she is trying to breast feed these swans?!?
This one appeals to me first of all because it’s a little girl playing “nurse,” but also: look at the detail. Look at the bloody knife! What is going on?
At any rate, it was a large group of plates that were very cheap, so I bought the whole lot and decided to sell them on Etsy. I added the tags, #grandmacore and #cottagecore because these seem like they could appeal to an audience that would appreciate them in a kitsch sort of way. They are very cute, somewhat bizarre, and in fact are growing on me. If they don’t sell I will just add them to my growing collection of random, rescued thrift store objects.