Bird Tile

These tiles were almost ubiquitous in Britain in the 1970s – my parents house built at the start of that decade had them on the bathroom walls, and the house I am currently living in (coincidentally also built in the early 1970s) still has these tiles on the walls of one bathroom!

As I was growing up I thought of these tiles as “bird tiles” because of the bird outline formed by some of the veins on the tile – although when I looked for information about these tiles on the internet they now seem to be called “chicken tiles”. The young me was also sure that the thing on the bird’s back was some kind of striding monster, although exactly what type of monster I’m not sure. So when I decided to create this image on the iPad I eventually settled on making the thing a large spider, which works for the image but is not exactly what I imagined all those years ago.

In many ways this picture is rather mundane. However, copying the pattern on the tile from our “original features” bathroom was strangely absorbing, and putting all the tiles the right way up (unlike the tiler in our house!) was very satisfying. So this image is a testament to the enjoyment of creating it, even though I think I have created much more engaging pictures elsewhere.