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CAFA Turns 15
Patricia Patrick Made the Pitch to See if it Would Fly |
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Written by Karen Hall
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Patricia Patrick Made the Pitch to See If It Would Fly
Canada has many talented floral designers, and because a
few key people in the industry saw the need to recognize them, the
Canadian Academy of Floral Art (CAFA) was established in 1992.
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Patricia Patrick aifd, cafa, was one of a handful of key industry people responsible for establishing CAFA. “... many of us (floral designers) have been through education and all that is needed to get to the top, and yet there was nothing to say that we were good.”
Photo courtesy of Angela Matthews
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Patricia Patrick of Rockwood, Ont., an accomplished designer herself, was one of the people who stepped up to help found the 15 year old organization.
“Many people who have gone through university degrees, for example, have letters after their names,” she says. “And many of us (floral designers) have been through education and all that is needed to get to the top, and yet there was nothing to say that we were good.”
According to Patrick, getting CAFA up and running in the beginning was a Flowers Canada (Ontario) project. At the time, Barney Wilson, the executive secretary, and Marilyn Broad, the president, thought an examination process in Canada was needed.
“Marilyn then approached me to put it together,” she says. “And one of the reasons she approached me was that I had just been inducted into AIFD (American Institute of Floral Designers) and she felt that it should be something along the lines of that but with Canadian content. She asked me to make a
presentation to the board of directors to see how it would fly. The board of
directors approved it and in 1992 we were official.”
At this point CAFA was still joined with Flowers Canada (Ontario), and John McNiven, the president, also became the first president of CAFA.
McNiven says he felt very strongly that a country the size of Canada should have its own identification.
“So I was very enthused about it and said, ‘Let’s make this happen,’” he says. “We had designers in Canada who were not being recognized for their abilities.”
In 1994 it was then decided that CAFA would be pulled from Flowers Canada (Ontario) and would be a stand-alone association.
At that point McNiven felt it was a conflict of interest for him to remain as president of CAFA while he was still president of Flowers Canada (Ontario), Patrick adds. She then became president from 1994 to 2000, and then again from 2002 to 2003.
Getting CAFA up and running was not an immediate thing by any means, says Patrick. Many people were involved, including Bob Newton, aaf, aifd, cafa, and president emeritus, Teleflora Canada; Norman Disch, aifd, cafa; and Tom Collin.
According to Newton, Wilson had approached him, explaining he wanted a program in which Canada would have its own accreditation. “I was AIFD at the time and I helped start CAFA because I really felt that we had a good bunch of designers in Canada,” he says. “And then we had to get founders. I was one of the first . . . and I convinced others to go into it as well.”
The association agreed upon only 25 founders and no more, Newton says.
Although CAFA had many supporters and was official in 1992, the first examination process wasn’t run until 1994. “The recession hit in a big way into the early ’90s . . . and at that point our founders, our suppliers, even our candidates had other worries,” Patrick says.
When CAFA did hold its first examination process in 1994, two out of three people passed. Today the association has approximately 150 members from Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Taipei, Holland, Ireland, England, and the United States. “Our standards are very high,” Patrick says, “and we induct two or three people a year.”
In the beginning the question came up as to who would judge those who wanted to be CAFA members, she says. “We couldn’t really have judges who were non-CAFA members because that wouldn’t make any sense,” Patrick says. “And if you’ve got no membership, how do you handle this? So for three years we invited the AIFD membership to join CAFA with no further examination. We then had a core membership of people who could judge new people coming in.”
But today, if someone is an AIFD member or has the top qualifications from another country, they still have to go through CAFA’s examination process.
So how has CAFA changed over the last 15 years? Inta Taurins, the current president of CAFA, says the association’s process has evolved to higher standards through the years.
“We really do look at artistic abilities,” she says. “It’s not just about being a good designer – you have to be an artist. And that’s what CAFA is – taking floral art to the next level and thinking outside-the-box.” She adds that CAFA’s national exposure has also grown in the last few years.
“It’s been on a steady growth pattern and I’ve seen it branch out more,” she says. “We’ve sort of been stuck very much in the Toronto area only because a lot of our members are here. But now we’ve got members all across the country.”
For this reason the association decided to hold its first-ever conference in September in Niagara Falls, Ont., instead of Toronto. “One of our main focuses is to grow the organization,” she says. “We want to attract people from such places as southwestern Ontario and the northern States.”
According to Patrick, because CAFA is becoming more recognized, the membership is asked to do bigger and better things. These have included doing the flowers for the 2007 Juno Awards in Saskatoon, and participating in the Canadian Tulip Festival.
Being a part of CAFA has also opened many doors for Patrick, and she is very involved in the industry. She is currently on CAFA’s Industry and Education Committee, she is a member of the World Flower Council, she is on the board of directors for the Northeast Chapter of AIFD, she is involved with Skills Canada at the provincial level, she teaches floral design at Seneca College, she works for C.M.C. wholesalers (decorating its showroom), she works as a freelance floral designer in retail for the major holidays, and she also does volunteer work for Women in Crisis, an organization in Guelph, Ont., which takes in battered women and their children.
“They have a big fundraiser every year so we donate the flowers and I get my students involved with the floral décor and arrangements,” she says.
Some of Patrick’s accomplishments include going to Thailand to help with a floral presentation for the King of Thailand, and she was asked to set up the presentation for the Queen of England when she came to Toronto a few years ago. She received the Helen Blakey Award in 1998, the Tulip Festival
President’s Award in 2006, and was also recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in Guelph through the YMCA-YWCA’s Women of Distinction Awards.
According to Don Patrick, her husband, she is an inspiration. “I’m in awe of her talent and of her people skills, and I always have been,” he says. “Her drive has only increased over the years.” Taurins agrees and says she admires Patrick for everything she’s accomplished in the floral industry. “She is someone that I look up to and admire,” she says. “She is someone who is not only a dear friend, but I consider her a mentor.”
Patrick, who has been in the industry for 45 years and keeps very busy with her varied life, also finds time to make her own clothes, work in her garden, and decorate her house. But Patrick takes it all in stride. “There is always time to do what you want to do,” she says. “We will always have goals to meet. If ever I do the best thing I can ever do, it’s time to stop. It’s time to step away. You always have to have that challenge. You’ve got to have that drive.”
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