Learn Me Some Things

It’s a firmly held belief of mine that it’s possible to learn something from anybody.

Perhaps that sounds foolish, hopelessly optimistic, or even incredibly dumb. That’s fine, it’s not your firmly held belief, so you’re off the hook. Feel free to wander the world and only notice the things you’d like to notice. Be my guest.

But how’s that possible? How can you learn something from people who appear to be willfully ignorant or just plain dumb?

I never said that you needed to learn what to do or how to do it from anybody. Sometimes, the most important lessons in life are what not to do. Once you start looking for those lessons, you won’t be able to stop seeing them.

Which is all to say that I watched the Kelly Wearstler interior design Masterclass last night with the family and had a grand ole time. I know nothing of interior design except what I like, which I suppose could be defined as the most important thing to know for one who isn’t being hired to design other people’s interiors. After all, if I know how I like my house what does it matter if you don’t like it? You don’t live here. I’ll keep my orange side table if I like, thank you very much.

To summarize, most of what the instructor was showing as examples made me scratch my head or squint. My daughter said it best: “She designs for the rich, not the medium.” Act weird while poor and you’re crazy. Act weird with a bunch of money and you’re eccentric. Same goes for design as far as I can tell. A train wreck of color and texture.

What I did find very interesting was how she’d been gathering inspiration pieces since college and continued that process everywhere she went. As a writer and a graphic designer, I do the same thing – down to looking at magazine covers in the check-out line to grab some thoughts for things to try. Inspiration is where you find it. If a world famous interior designer can grab inspiration from a kimono scrap she picked up in a secondhand store, why not try a new font combo from the cover of Vogue?

This was my first entry into Masterclass, and a shallow one at that. Mostly, it was something for us to do as a family, but it wound up becoming MST3K with the wife and kid incredulous over what they were watching. I’ll probably finish it up and might even take some notes a second time through.

Might as well learn something, right?