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.
Also recorded as Alice Williams · Alice Williams Cling
Alice Cling
- Name
- Alice Williams Cling
- Birth Name
- Alice Williams
- Born
- 21 March 1946
- Birthplace
- Cow Springs, Arizona U.S.
- Occupation
- Navajo potter Ceramicist
- Education
- Intermountain Indian School
- Nationality
- United States
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
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.
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Note VALÉORINE
Alice Cling (born 1946) is a ceramicist and potter, of American nationality. The ceramicist was born in Tonalea. Alice Cling lived in Shonto. Works are held at Smithsonian American Art Museum and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q28935547 · wikipedia · Alice Cling
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Alice Williams Cling • Birth Name — Alice Williams • Born — 21 March 1946 • Birthplace — Cow Springs, Arizona U.S. • Other Names — Alice Williams Cling • Occupation — Navajo potter Ceramicist • Education — Intermountain Indian School • Years Active — 1976-present
Early life
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
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. Cling 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 considered non-utilitarian, which represented a huge shift from function to art. In 1978, Cling's work was selected by Joan Mondale and featured in the vice-presidential mansion in Washington, D.C. and she was honored with the Arizona Indian Living Treasures Award in 2006. Cling's work is in the collection of the Smithsonian.
Personal life
Personal life
Cling learned her pottery skills from her mother, master potter Rose Williams. She lived across the highway from her mother in Shonto, Arizona. Following in the family tradition, Cling's daughters are also artists, as are her sisters, Sue Ann Williams, and Susie Williams Crank. Cling married Jervis "Jerry" Cling shortly after graduating from high school. They had four children. She works and lives in the Shonto-Cow Springs area in Arizona.
Selected works
Selected works
• Wedding Vase with Braided Handles, 1987 • Pot with Incised Geometric Decoration, 1988
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1946
Alice Cling was born on 21 March 1946.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Shonto
Residences
Tonalea.
Birth place
Collections
Collections
• Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, AZ • Arizona State Museum, Tempe, AZ • Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ • Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM • Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ • Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q28935547: Alice Cling
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Alice Cling”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Awards
• 2006: Arizona Indian Living Treasures Award
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Booker, Margaret Moore. The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford University Press. 2011. 978-0-199-73926-4.
- 2.Congdon. American Folk Art: A Regional Reference. ABC-CLIO. 487–488. 2012. 978-0-313-34936-2.
- 3.Iverson, Peter. Diné: A History of the Navajos. University of New Mexico Press. 313–314. 2003. 978-0-826-32715-4.
- 4.Bataille, Gretchen M. Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. Taylor & Francis. 336. 2005. 978-1-135-95587-8.
- 5.Alice Williams Cling (1946 - ). Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe.
- 6.Peterson, Susan. Alice Cling. Women Artists of the American West. Purdue University. 1997.
- 7.Hartman, Russell P. Navajo Pottery: Traditions & Innovations. Northland Press. 1987. 978-0-873-58430-2.
- 8.Rosenak, Chuck. The People Speak: Navajo Folk Art. Northland Pub. 117–118. 1994. 978-0-873-58565-1.
- 9.Mountain, Michele. Navajo traditions expressed at MNA arts, culture festival. Navajo-Hopi Observer. 21 July 2009.
- 10.Swisher, Karen Gayton. Native North American Firsts. Gale. xliii, 13. 1998. 978-0-787-60518-6.
- 11.Alice Cling. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
- 12.Rosenak, Chuck. Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists. Abbeville Press. 76–77, 359. 1990. 978-1-558-59041-0.
- 13.Spencer Museum of Art Collection - Cling, Alice Alice Cling. collection.spencerart.ku.edu.
- 14.Alice Cling. Arizona Indian Living Treasures Awards. 2006.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 15
- Bataille, Gretchen M. Native American women: a biographical dictionary. Routledge. 2005. 978-1-135-95587-8.
- Rosenak, Chuck. Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists. Abbeville. 1998. 978-1-55859-041-0.
- Swisher, Karen Gayton. Native North American firsts. Gale. 1998. 978-0-7876-0518-6.
- Laffal, Florence. American self-taught art: an illustrated analysis of 20th century artists and trends with 1,319 capsule biographies. McFarland & Co. 2013. 978-0-7864-7519-3.
- Ressler, Susan R. Women artists of the american west. Mcfarland. 2011. 978-0-7864-6438-8.
- Makov, Susan. Trading post guidebook: where to find the trading posts, galleries, auctions, artists, and museums of the Four Corners region. Northland Pub. 1997. 978-0-87358-612-2.
- Rosenak, Chuck. Navajo folk art: the people speak. Northland Pub. 1998. 9780873586931.
- Hartman, Russell P. Navajo pottery. Traditions and innovations. Northland Publ. 1989. 978-0-87358-430-2.
- Iverson, Peter. Diné a history of the Navajos. University of New Mexico Press. 2003. 978-0-8263-2715-4.
- Hartman, Russell P. Navajo Pottery: Traditions & Innovations. Northland Press. 1987. 978-0-873-58430-2.
- Laffal, Florence. American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies. McFarland & Co. 2003. 978-0-786-41669-1.
- Peterson, Susan. Pottery by American Indian Women: The Legacy of Generations. Abbeville Press. 166–167. 1997. 978-0-789-20353-3.
- Wright, H. Diane. Potters and their work. Plateau. Museum of Northern Arizona. 58. 2. 24–31. 1987. 15686775.
- Wright, H. Diane. Navajo Pottery: Contemporary Trends in a Traditional Craft. American Indian Art. 12. 2. 26–35. 1987.
- Museum of American Folk Art. Alice Cling. The Clarion. 13. 36–37. 1988. 0197-6850.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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