Along with my semi-regular Cool People Doing Cool Things column, I'm now going to be adding one called Online Tools for Artists. Today's Tool: Pinterest
I'm a little embarrassed that as a social media practitioner, I hadn't heard of Pinterest until a few weeks ago. And to be fair, even when I did find out about it, I didn't know how it could possibly be of interest to me. Pinterest is a "virtual pinboard" that lets you share any images you find on the Web. A neat concept that can be used to help decorate your home, plan a wedding, put together fashion & beauty tips, or collect recipes to share with your friends. This is all fine and good, but like I said I couldn't figure out how it could be of any real use to me in my everyday life. Then I remembered a conversation I had with my director for my upcoming appearance in Mary Magdalene and Adventures in Sobriety (tickets currently available by phone). He told me how when he worked with Peter Hinton as a director, the man would have an entire wall filled with images that inspired him in regards to the production he would be working on at the time. That's when it hit me. I'm not much of one for using wall space or creating vision boards or things like that (being #hobokenny and not having walls for a while will do that to you), but virtual walls? Sign me up!
Recently, I've created two Boards on Pinterest: one for Mary M and one for Roller Derby Saved My Soul. I was even able to add the show info in the Board description. So far so good. I've added some photos I've taken on my phone, as well as stuff I've found online by adding the Pin It button to my browser toolbar. I've also done a search for things like "roller derby" in Pinterest and found a few people with awesome photos that I've started following.
I'm not quite clear on the whole following aspect just yet. Following someone seems to mean that their Pins show up in your Home window when you log on. I had left a question for myself in one photo to find out who was it in and some strangers actually answered less than 5 minutes later which weirded me out a little bit. However it doesn't give them access to any of my personal information so, so far, I'm cool with that.
Right now, I think I have found myself a great tool that let's me work through my own personal actor/writer creation process while letting in folks on my own personal practice. As someone who readily advocates that theatre is about process and not product, I think Pinterest could be a very good step in that direction.
What do you think? Have you tried Pinterest? How has it been working for you?