The Rainey family farmed for generations in northwest Tennessee, dating back to the Civil War. Ed’s parents, David and Bernice Rainey, moved to Detroit in the late 1940s in search of better job opportunities, joining other family members who left an agricultural life for factory work at the Ford Motor Company. Ed was born on October 19, 1954 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. 

The family returned to Tennessee in the early 1960s and resumed farming in Newbern, raising crops and cattle. Ed graduated from high school in 1972 and headed straight to basic training in the Army National Guard. Later, his experience at Fort Dix contributed subject matter for his artwork, such as plane wing charts and targets.

After finishing his military duty, Ed moved to Memphis with Steve Webb, a lifelong friend who was enrolled at the Memphis College of Art (formerly the Art Academy). After developing friendships with other MCA students and observing the class assignments and benefits of the study of art, Ed presented a portfolio for review to the MCA admissions committee. He was accepted and entered the school in the fall of 1976. He would say later that “the lard fell from his eyes.” Ed embraced his classwork, absorbing art history and technique instruction. Sculpture was his concentration and he received a Certificate of Sculpture in 1980. 

In 1982, Ed met Caspar Henselmann from New York City, a visiting sculpture professor at MCA. Henselmann introduced him to Damon Brandt who owned a gallery in Manhattan and Ed was contracted for a solo show in 1983. The “Target Series” exhibit sold out and was featured in Art in America magazine. 

The 1980s were a highly productive time for Ed through his association with the Damon Brandt Gallery. Besides well-received solo shows around the country, his work was selected for a group show in San Francisco that included Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. His paintings were purchased by corporate collections and museums, including The Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. During this time, Ed was helping at home on the family farm and making art in his studio, a former chicken coop. 

Ed met Gloria White in 1990 and they were married the next summer. Living in Memphis again and no longer associated with a gallery, he pursued daily work as a carpenter with several friends from MCA. Ed continued to make art, participating in local shows and several invitational exhibits at museums, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, and the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, MS. 

In his later years, Ed was an instructor at Flicker Street Studio in Memphis. He had a solo show there shortly before his death in 2023 after a brief battle with cancer.