Tam Irving is an educator and studio potter based in West Vancouver. He is a founding member and impetus behind the formation of the NWCF. After obtaining a degree in Agriculture from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and working as a chemist for Shell Canada, he became a production potter. He began to teach in ceramics at the Vancouver School of Art/Emily Carr University in 1973, retiring in 1996 to return to his own practice. As an artist, he is “interested in the beauty that can inhere in simple objects.” He has exhibited widely including in Thrown: Influences and Intentions of West Coast Ceramics at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC in 2004, and the solo exhibition Transitions of a Still Life at the Burnaby Art Gallery in 2007. He has written for Contact Magazine and Studio Potter. His work is in the collections of The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull; the Gardiner Museum, Toronto; the Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo and the Surrey Art Gallery in Surrey. Tam served on the Board from its inception in 1993 until 2010.