NAVAJO CERAMIST/POTTER ALICE CLING BORN
Cling, born in Cow Springs, Arizona (AZ), on the Navajo Nation, learned pottery from her mother, famed potter Rose Williams, and from her great aunt, Grace Barlow. Graduating from the Intermountain Indian School, Brigham City, Utah, in 1966, Alice married and worked as a teacher’s aide in Shonto, AZ, before becoming a serious potter in the 1970s. Her pots, created from clay found near the Black Mesa area in Apache-Navajo Counties in AZ, are fired outdoors using juniper wood to enhance the clay’s natural pigments. Alice is a coil potter and was the first Navajo potter to use a smooth river stone to polish her pots instead of the traditional corncob. Her pottery is deemed non-utilitarian–a huge shift from function to art. In 1978, her work was featured in the vice-presidential mansion in Washington, D.C. and she was honored with the AZ Indian Living Treasures Award in 2006. Cling’s work is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art, AZ State, Heard, Millicent Rogers, Phoenix Art, and Spencer Art Museums.
Sources:
Margaret Moore Booker, "Cling, Alice," in Marter, Joan M. (ed.). The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. New York: Oxford University Press (2011). Retrieved 11/14/2022, The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art - Joan M. Marter - Google Books
Kristin G. Congdon, Kara Kelley Hallmark, eds., "Alice Williams Cling," American Folk Art: A Regional Reference. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO (2012). pp. 487–488. Retrieved 11/14/2022, American Folk Art: A Regional Reference - Kristin G. Congdon, Kara Kelley Hallmark - Google Books
Wikipedia
Pot: Alice Cling, 1988. Pot with Incised Geometric Decoration. Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock. Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Object No. 1997.124.147. Source: Pot with Incised Geometric Decoration | Smithsonian American Art Museum (si.edu)
Indigenous America Calendar 