Navajo artist Alice Cling was born around 1946 in a hogan at Cow Springs, in the Tonalea section of Arizona. Cling's Navajo pots are hand coiled and covered with pine sap creating a rough surface. Cling then takes a smooth stone and burnishes the pot to smooth out the texture. The darkened areas of her pottery are made when the pottery is fired. The chemistry of the clay body and the clay slip, the atmosphere in the fire, and the ash that falls onto the pots from the juniper wood combine to produce the red-orange-purple-brown-black blushes that enhance the unusual veneer of Alice's pots.

After graduating from an Indian school, Alice married Jerry Cling. They have four children who make pottery too. The family di...