Faculty Profiles
Sarah Rainwater
Sarah Rainwater teaches Floral Design at the Ashworth Career School. A second generation florist, Sarah acquired her skills working with her mother for almost twenty years. She joined Ashworth in 2009.
Sarah has a passion for creativity of all kinds, but feels that floral design is an integral and important part of our lives. "When you work with flowers you touch every major moment in people's lives – birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, all the way up till their death," she explains. "We're surrounded by flowers at all the major events of our lives."
Sarah believes strongly that a person's innate creativity is one of the most critical aspects of working with flowers. "There are the basic mechanics of floral design, the details and the how-to's, but the major component of floral design is creativity," she says. "When you're teaching someone about color, texture and flow, you have to take into account their creativity as well as the basic components."
She especially enjoys it when a student's individual creativity combines with the fundamentals of color to help them achieve a particular design objective. "If you are trying to create a sense of excitement, you go with colors that contrast with each other," Sarah explains. "If you are trying to create a sense of calm, you go with colors that complement each other. That you can teach, but you can't teach creativity."
Although she is new to teaching here at Ashworth, Sarah has quickly learned how much she enjoys interacting with students. "I love it. You listen to what the students have to say. They bring an interest and a passion to it. They learn from you and you learn from them. It gives you a new perspective."
Sarah is also enthusiastic about the knowledge and skills her students will acquire at Ashworth. "You will learn more from this course than you will from working with a regular florist," she says. "This course teaches you the basics, but it also takes you beyond the basics. It teaches you how to take your creativity and make it into something to touch people on a daily basis."
