Born in 1946 at Cow Springs (near Tonalea, Arizona), Alice has lived most of her life in the area west of Kayenta and north of Black Mesa. She learned the Dineh way of making pottery from her mother, Rose Williams, and her aunt, Grace Barlow.

Dineh pottery is a relatively recent phenomenon as they were traditionally a nomadic tribe who stored all their foodstuffs in pitch-coated baskets. The nomadic way of life made ceramic pottery impractical for several reasons, the weight and fragility of pottery being at the top of that list. Also, unlike Hopi, Acoma and Zuni potters, those few who made Dineh pottery for ceremonial and personal use were never approached by the early railroad tourist promoters to produce pots on a commercial basis.

The Dineh learned much of the traditional methods of making pottery from their Puebloan neighbors after they settled in the Four Corners region about the same time the Spanish first appeared in the Southwest. They did produce a significant amount of utilitarian and ceremonial pottery through the 1700s and early 1800s but after the railroads arrived, it was too easy to purchase metal pots and pans. Dineh pottery production of all sorts virtually stopped. By the early 1950s, only potters in the Shonto/Cow Springs area were still producing any amount of Dineh pottery and it was Bill Beaver, a non-Dineh trader at the Shonto Trading Post who spurred the revival and stimulated the market for Dineh pottery. As the tourist trade increased, so did the demand for Dineh pottery. However, there has always been a religious prohibition on painted pottery designs among the Dineh and that prohibition is still widely observed.

Alice started dabbling with clay as a young girl and became a recognized Dineh potter only in the late 1980s, after graduating from high school and returning to the Shonto area. She digs her clay from a special place near Black Mesa. She applies an iron-bearing slip to her finished dry clay forms and polishes the surfaces with either a river stone or a Popsicle stick. When firing, the ash that falls onto the pots from the juniper wood-fueled pit fire combines with the clay to produce the red-orange-purple-brown-black blushes (also known as fire clouds) on her pottery. After firing, she usually applies a light coating of warm piñon pine pitch and burnishes each pot to a distinctive low sheen.

Alice's personal contribution to the renaissance of Dineh pottery is the magnificent coloration she achieves on her softly burnished forms. Except for fire clouds and the occasional raised rope or biyo' around the shoulder or the opening, her pots are undecorated.

One of Alice's pieces was exhibited in the Vice-Presidential Mansion in Washington, DC, in 1978 and her career took off from there. Her elegant, gracefully austere pots are included with the avant-garde potters in Pottery by American Indian Women, the Legacy of Generations exhibition and book by Susan Peterson, 1997, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Alice earned numerous awards from nearly every Market and show she entered in the 19 years between those two events. Alice hasn't entered as many juried competitions in the years since 1997 but she still produces beautiful pottery in the ancient way.

Some Exhibits that have Featured Alice's Work

• Our Stories: American Indian Art and Culture in Arizona. Heard Museum West. Surprise, AZ. June 2006 - October 2009
• The Navajo Folk Art Festival. Heard Museum North. Scottsdale, AZ. February 2002
• Fabric, Wood and Clay: Diverse World of Navajo Art. Heard Museum North. Scottsdale, AZ. January 2002 - July 2002
• Indian Market: New Directions in Southwestern Native American Pottery. Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, MA. November 2001 - March 2002
• The Art of the People. Gallup Cultural Center. Gallup, NM. August 2001
• The Legacy of Generations: Pottery by American Indian Women. Heard Museum. Phoenix, AZ. February 14, 1998 - May 17, 1998
• The Legacy of Generations: Pottery by American Indian Women. The Museum of Women in the Arts. Washington, DC. October 9, 1997 - January 11,1998
• Contemporary Art of the Navajo Nation. Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Cedar Rapids, IA. 1994
• The Navajo Show and Sale. Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona. Tempe, AZ. December 1988
• Anii Ánáádaalyaa̕ ígíí (Recent Ones That Are Made): Continuity & Innovation in Recent Navajo Art. Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Santa Fe, New Mexico. July 10, 1988 - October 30, 1988
• In the Spirit of Tradition: The Heard Museum Craft Arts Invitational. Heard Museum. Phoenix, AZ. March 1986 - May 1986
• Alice Cling. Navajo Tribal Museum. Window Rock, Arizona. May 13-30, 1985

Some Awards Alice Earned

• 2004 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery: Best of Division
• 2004 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style all forms: First Place
• 2001 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style alternate forms: First Place
• 2001 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style alternate forms: Third Place
• 1998 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style, jars (with or without handles or lids): Second Place
• 1998 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style, jars (with or without handles or lids): Third Place
• 1998 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unpainted pottery, Category 802 - Navajo style, other forms: Third Place
• 1994 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unslipped and unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style: Second Place
• 1993 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Unslipped pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style: First Place
• 1992 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unslipped and unpainted pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style: First Place
• 1992 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division J - Non-traditional, any forms: Best of Division
• 1992 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division J - Non-traditional, any forms, Category 1611 - Miscellaneous: First Place
• 1991 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unslipped pottery, Category 801 - Navajo style: Second Place
• 1989 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional, Category 701 - Navajo pottery: First Place
• 1989 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional, Category 701 - Navajo pottery: Second Place
• 1988 Navajo Nation Fair Arts and Crafts Competition, Classification III - Pottery, patch-coated, Navajo: Best in Class and First Place
• 1988 Navajo Nation Fair Arts and Crafts Competition, Classification III - Pottery, patch-coated, Navajo: First Place
• 1987 Gallup InterTribal Ceremonial, Classification IV - Pottery, undecorated, any object: First Place
• 1983 Santa Fe Indian Market, Classification II - Pottery, Division A - Traditional unslipped and unpainted: First Place