Alice Cling was born at Cow
Springs on the Navajo reservation. She learned how to make pottery
from her mother, Rose Williams. Alice is married to Jerry Cling
and they have four children, Michelle, Donna, Jervis and Vincent.
Alice started making pottery around 1968 and started getting
better and experimenting about 1974.
The family digs the brown
clay from a place near their home. The clay is then sifted to
remove impurities and mixed with sand and water to make it workable.
After building the pot by
hand she then puts a red slip on it and polishes it with a stone.
“Polishing can be very time consuming” she says and
she has got to polish over and over to get the fine polish she
achieves.
She then fires the pots outside
using either juniper or pinion wood. This process gives her pots
a beautiful color and fire cloud finish. She then applies a light
coating of warm pitch to the warm pots after firing and burnishes
that down.
