This website was created by Jeff Blakley, the second of Tom and Mary Blakley’s three sons, in an effort to document their work and correct some misperceptions about the work that Tom and Mary did and how the business came to be. Contributions are welcome – please see the sticky posts on the blog page for more information on how to help.

Mary Blakley Ceramics was a joint business established in 1966 by Tom (1910-1984) and Mary (1914-2004) Blakley in Homestead, Florida. Tom was trained as a commercial artist and drew cartoons for national magazines from the mid-1940s into the late 1950s. When the cartoon market for magazines changed in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Tom switched to cartooning in clay. Their work was inexpensive, colorful, and had a wide following, both in South Florida and across the country. They sold their work in many shops in the Florida Keys, on the west coast of Florida and also in the national chains Burdines and Jordan Marsh. They supplied wall plaques for the Forum Restaurant chain in the mid-1970s and created a 10′ x 30′ mural in 1965 that still graces the front entrance of Winter Park Towers in Winter Park, Florida.

Their commercial work was very popular and was their “bread and butter” – they were among the few artists who were able to raise a family solely from the sale of their work. But they also had a fine art side that not many people know about. The purpose of this site is to document the lives and work of Tom and Mary Blakley with the hope of encouraging other clay artists to use some of the techniques that Tom and Mary developed over the years. Both Tom and Mary were very interested in the patterns that different combinations of low-fire ceramic glazes could make. While they had an extensive collection of recipes, developed by trial and error, the recipes are not the key to their work. The key is how the glazes were used. Tom and Mary used washes, underglaze pencil, different application techniques (sifting, brushing, and the use of a palette knife), application order and multiple firings to achieve effects that I’ve never seen any other ceramic artist achieve. They were masters who used low-fire ceramic glazes to create effects that have often been compared to painting.

Here is an example – an attempt by Mary in July, 1989 to see if she could recreate a Rufino Tamayo painting in glazes. In a note on the back of the photograph, she wrote, “From Tamayo – I wanted to see if it could be done with glazes. By golly, it worked.”

I’d love to learn about other artists who are also intrigued with color in the way that Tom and Mary were. If you know of any clay artists who use glazes to create color and patterns like Tom and Mary did, please contact me using the “Contact Me” tab.

To view their work, click on the “Galleries” tab below the header image. Occasional posts will be made in the blog to present background material and stories submitted by readers.