Meet Sarah Rafferty | Artist, Designer + Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah Rafferty and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, do you have some perspective or insight you can share with us on the question of when someone should give up versus when they should keep going?
I think this is at the heart of running your own business. I thought for so long about owning my own business and when I finally put my dreams down on paper and made the plan I knew it would come with ups and downs. I think we can often throw in the towel too soon when it comes to something that stretches us. Unless my business wasn’t making any profit, I was going to see this thing through and that dedication and discipline had been the factor to my success.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have always seen the world in terms of beauty – light, moments, conversations, it is all rooted in an expressive dissection of the beauty around us. This led me to study art in school because it was basically how I understood everything around me. It also made school easier because regular school wasn’t exactly my “thing.” I remember back in about 2010, seeing my friends start businesses with their art and thinking how much I admired that, how much I wanted that but wasn’t quite sure how to do it. It lit a fire in me. At the time I had been teaching photography full time to high school students and loved it but also couldn’t let go of the idea of doing something on my own. After years of thinking and dreaming I finally took the plunge and got my EIN number, filed for an LLC and opened my business bank account in 2017. That was when Atwater Designs was born. I remained a teacher in the classroom for 3 years while I built the business and then in 2020 I took it full time. It wasn’t easy to start the business. Mainly, it was a lot of mental hurdles. The largest one being that I just didn’t know where to start. And that is why my shoutout is to my husband – he helped me move from dreaming and thinking (and even obsessing!) to action by putting one foot in front of the other.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I love this sentiment as it is at the core of how I run my business. Nothing happens without influences from the books we read to the conversations we have at the grocery store to the way a friend impacts your life and makes you think. I wouldn’t be here, in this awesome position of being a business owner, without my husband, John. He gets my shoutout!

Website: https://atwaterdesigns.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atwaterdesigns/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083017677011

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sarahrafferty1133/

Other: Skillshare – online classes https://www.skillshare.com/en/r/user/atwaterdesigns?gr_tch_ref=on

Image Credits
Portrait – Traci Delisser