Tom was many things, but cartooning was the love of his life. When he found that the market for cartoons drawn on paper and published in magazines was declining in the early 1960s, he started cartooning in clay and his career was renewed. He loved to make people laugh and his character plaques were very popular. In the early 1970s, the feminist movement was gaining strength and it was no longer politically correct to attach the label of “housewife” to the woman of the house. Thus, the term “Domestic Engineer”. Tom made a lot of different character plaques, all caricatures of the people in the professions that they portrayed. Teachers had books, plumbers had wrenches, carpenters had hammers, doctors had syringes or stethoscopes, housewives had brooms, football players had footballs, and so on. Tom was very inventive and didn’t miss an opportunity to have fun with various professions.

I’m posting a picture of this plaque because it is unusual in that the words “Domestic Engineer” are carved into the clay by Tom (the usual practice was for Mary to add the title by using glaze at the bottom of the pieces) and because the piece has an unusual maker’s mark – the surname Blakley spelled out in a circle. I’ve seen this button a few other times, but it is not common.