The 50th annual Canadian Tulip Festival is in progress in Ottawa. As part of this internationally acclaimed event, festival organizers staged a series of competitions, in a number of categories, for international floral designers, professional designers and students from floral design schools.
Five students from Conestoga College’s Retail Florist program participated and distinguished themselves by earning four prizes for their skilful, imaginative work in competitions involving floral design schools. The Conestoga entrants were: Lindsay Clymans of Kitchener, Pat Doyle of Waterloo, Jill Dunbrook of Waterloo, Michelle Seip of Kitchener and Sasha Wilbur of Waterloo.
The Surprise Box event involved students receiving at the start of the
competition a box containing flowers, greens and a container. Without
any advance notice about the contents of the box, each student had 90
minutes to prepare a floral conception using only the materials provided.
Two contests were run, with participating students assigned to one or
the other. In one contest, Jill Dunbrook and Pat Doyle shared
first-place honours. In the other, Lindsay Clymans won first place outright.
Each received a specially designed oil lamp, crafted in glass and bearing
the logo of the Canadian Tulip Festival.
The Tulip Blast event involved creation of a floral composition on a metal structure four feet high, to symbolize an explosion of tulips. Entrants had to provide a sketch in advance, use only tulips and other natural products, and complete the task within the allotted time, so that the metal structure was no longer apparent at the completion of the design work. Sasha Wilbur won second place, and for her efforts received a specially crafted vase bearing the Tulip Festival logo.
Event judging in each case was done by the professional and international designers entered in their own competition categories.
Retail Florist is a part-time, certificate-level program consisting of six core courses -- dealing mainly with design, management and sales for the floral industry -- plus one elective course and two field-placement components in the retail industry.
CONTACT: Gillian Oldfield, 519-748-5220, ext. 3634 <goldfield@conestogac.on.ca>