Voices in Clay is a dialogue between working Pueblo potters and the pottery made by their ancestors between 1880 and 1940. Three traditional potters and three Pueblo pottery experts selected more than a hundred pots for inclusion in this book. The three Pueblo potters were Elvis Torrez of San Ildefonso Pueblo, Robert Tenorio of Santa Domingo Pueblo, and Steve Lucas, a First Mesa Hopi-Tewa. The three curators - Bruce Bernstein, J. J. Brody, and Tony Chavarria (from Santa Clara Pueblo and curator of ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe) - were present to guide the conversation and to interpret the significance of indigenous pottery for the non-Pueblo world. The result is a narrative of multiple voices. There are the potters' words describing the pottery in front of them, the process of pottery-making, the pottery-making world, and the process the curators and potters went through in selecting works for the book.

Historical introductions by Bernstein and Brody bring context to the selection of pots. Bruce Bernstein is assistant director for cultural resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. J. J. Brody is professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico.