Alice Cling

Alice Williams Cling (Navajo, born March 21, 1946) is a Native American ceramist and potter known for creating beautiful and innovative pottery that has a distinctive rich reds, purples, browns and blacks that have a polished and shiny exteriors, revolutionizing the functional to works of art. Critics have argued that she is the most important Navajo potter of the last 25 years. Early life Cling was born in Cow Springs, Arizona, in the Tonalea area of the Navajo Nation. In 1966, Cling graduated from the Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah. Career Cling learned the craft of pottery from her mother, Rose Williams, and her great aunt, Grace Barlow. The pots are created from clay found near the Black Mesa area in Apache-Navajo Counties in Arizona, and are then fired outdoors using juniper wood, with the firing process enhancing the clay's natural pigments. Cling and her mother and aunt were responsible for revitalizing traditional Navajo pottery.