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ALICE
CLING - Navajo Potter
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.
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