I have a friend named Rob. I don’t see him very often, but when I do it is always a real pleasure.
He is a very upbeat person with a seemingly insatiable curiosity for delight in many of its guises – flavorful cheeses, distinctive food preparations, beverages of all sorts to accompany food, or to drink alone; especially wine. And it doesn’t stop there – he has accumulated many treasures over an extended period of time: paintings, drawings, prints, maps, photographs, furniture, books, objects – and the list goes on.
Rob and his remarkable wife Shelley have had a rich life raising their four daughters in a grand-scaled Queen Anne home (including a carriage house) in an early Boston suburb, while leading rich professional careers.
While the children (and now grandchildren) live on their own, Rob and Shelley’s ‘nest’ is hardly empty.
Rob has an intellectual, historical or aesthetic connection – and is passionate about – nearly every ‘thing’ in his home. He is a cultural adventurer; some time ago we enjoyed an afternoon looking at antique furniture, paintings and decorative arts in a museum, followed by an exhibition of adventuresome new art, we had a lovely meal with a great accompanying beverage, and went to a enormous outlet bookstore.
And what’s particularly refreshing about Rob is that unlike so many men, he speaks of his professional life only when prodded – there is too much still to see, do, experience, taste, share, etc. to converse about work!
Now you’re wondering what Rob has to do with Pinterest?
It took quite a while for Pinterest to have an appeal for me, but in thinking about how Rob and I (and many others) take great delight in a vast array of sensory stimulation, I discovered that this platform is a fantastic place to indulge my curiosity. You may be saying yourself “Do I really need to have another social media platform?”
I can totally relate to this notion, however, I would offer that you might think of it more in terms of – I GET to have Pinterest!
As a highly visual person, I read, skim, look at, cast a glance toward, and peruse dozens of magazines each moth. I read the New York Times everyday, and sometimes I supplement this news feed with the Wall Street Journal Weekend. I take deliver of a few books every week, and yet I am always seeking more visual and mental stimulation.
I am sure there are many ways to use Pinterest, I have found one for myself that is a relaxing yet stimulating visual adventure that uses the repository of the platform to catalogue inspiring images in categories.
My boards represent categories of my personal interests; once I reach a critical mass of images in a category, I can look objectively and see what it is that I like. It isn’t as much a revelation as it is an emergence of trends that reveal themselves. They become aesthetic self-portraits.
Here some images from a few of my boards.
MODERN-ism
.
STAIRS
.
FIREPLACES
.
OFF-the-WALL
Curious to see more of what I find visually exciting? Follow me on Pinterest!