Ceramics

Robin’s education in the field of ceramics has been wide-ranging and includes educational training from four institutions, in three different countries. With a completed BFA from Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, AB, Canada, Robin also studied at Kootenay School of the Arts, in Nelson, BC, Canada, at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia and completed his MFA graduate degree at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, USA.

Robin’s professional development experience in the field also includes a three-year apprenticeship with a studio potter, several research and work-studies in Canada, USA, Australia, Korea and China, and artist in residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Red Deer College and the Medalta International Artist in Residency program. Robin has taught ceramics at the post secondary level at both Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary, AB and at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, MB and has traveled extensively teaching workshops and facilitating residencies across Canada and the United States. He currently maintains a studio practice out of his home outside of Nelson, British Columbia and teaches at Kootenay Studio Arts, Selkirk College.

He then traveled to Halifax, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1991. Tagseth’s studies next took him to The Ohio State University where he received his MFA degree.and finally to Norway’s Insstitutt Keramisk Kunndsthandervk. Since then, Tagseth has been teaching and leading workshops at various institutions in Canada and the United States, including the University of Alaska, the University of Manitoba, the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, the Hartford School of Art (Connecticut), West Virginia University, Jindezhen (China) and Montana State University in Bozeman.

Tagseth was most recently an adjunct professor at the University of Regina. His pottery is influenced by his western Canadian agrarian upbringing and the ceramic traditions of 17th Century Korea and China. Making use of wood-firing, salt-firing, and applied glaze chemistry, Martin’s works are conceptual, though they involve traditional vessel forms.