NEWS
RELEASE

The Art of Form: Alice Cling and Her Family of Navajo Potters

Date of Release: March 7, 2005

(Arizona State Museum, Tucson) For centuries, Navajo potters produced ceramic goods for personal and ceremonial uses. Beginning in the mid-20th century, some potters began to produce works for an outside market. By the mid-1980s, urged by Indian art trader William T. "Bill" Beaver at Sacred Mountain Trading Post near Flagstaff, potter Alice Williams Cling became inspired to capture a place in the vast market for southwestern ceramics. Since then the Williams/Cling family, led by Alice, has paved the way for Navajo art pottery. Born c. 1946 in the Arizona portion of the Navajo Reservation, Alice Williams learned her craft from her mother Rose Williams, and aunt Grace Barlow. Today her trademark high luster pots of exquisite form are collected by pottery connoisseurs nationwide.

With clean lines, elegant forms, and shiny from an iron-rich pine pitch, the pots of Alice Cling may look simple but their beauty comes from a lifetime of trial and error. Like any accomplished artist, Alice has refined her techniques over the years. The brown clay she and her family members use comes from a place near Black Mesa (her four grown children are also ceramicists). After screening it to eliminate impurities, mixing it with sand for temper, and adding water to make it workable, Alice proceeds to create the simple yet elegant forms she is known for.

One of Alice’s innovations is adding a red slip that is then highly burnished with stone polishing. After firing, the pots are covered with the traditional Navajo addition of pine pitch and the combination produces beautiful shades of red-orange-brown-black-purple clouds, all randomly made during the firing process.

Among Alice’s honors are numerous awards at art fairs and markets around the country. Her pottery was also chosen to decorate Vice President Walter Mondale’s home in Washington, D.C., during his tenure.

Meet Alice Cling, members of her family, and Mr. Beaver at a reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibition: Saturday, March 19, 2 p.m. at Arizona State Museum. The exhibition continues through September 1, 2005.