THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Pinterest isn’t where artists go to get inspired, it’s where collectors and designers decide what kinds of rooms they’re building next and which art belongs in them. Today, I’m breaking down the three Pinterest trends that are quietly driving art sales right now, and the mistake most artists make when they try to follow them.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place podcast, an Art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there, I’m Miriam Schulman. I’m author of Artpreneur and I’m your curator of inspiration today. Now, let me frame this properly before we dive into trends. Pinterest is an Instagram. It’s not TikTok and it’s not entertainment based. It’s intent based. People are no longer going to scroll Pinterest to kill time. Maybe they used to. Not anymore. They go to Pinterest to make decisions for planning, renovations, saving kitchen layouts, mood boarding their living rooms. In other words, they’re figuring out what their next space is going to feel like. And that’s a completely different psychological state on Instagram. They’re distracted, but on Pinterest, they’re building something. And here’s what most artists miss interior designers use Pinterest before they specify. Art collectors use Pinterest before they buy furniture. Homeowners use Pinterest before they paint, remodel or redecorate, which means by the time they’re ready to buy the art, the esthetic framework has already been decided. Now, these trends are not about telling you what to paint. They are shaping the rooms your art will live in. And when you understand the environment your work is entering, the colors, the textures, the emotional tone of the space. You stop guessing what’s selling and start understanding what feels aligned. That’s why artists should care. That’s what we’re talking about. Not because you should chase trends, but because rooms change before collecting behavior changes. And if you understand where rooms are going, you understand where the money is going to go next. And if that sentence just made you realize, okay, I need to rethink how I’m positioning my work.
Miriam Schulman: Don’t worry. I’ve made something just for you. I created a free guide called the Luxury Positioning Checklist because most artists are not under-priced, they’re under positioned. This checklist is going to walk you through the subtle signals serious collectors look for on your website, in your presentation, your language, even how you photograph your work. And it’s not about changing your art. This is about elevating how your art is perceived. You can download it for free at SchulmanArt.com/Luxury. Go grab it, then come right back here because we’re about to break down trend number one. Trend number one, quiet luxury. All right. Let’s talk about the first trend. Quiet luxury. And I want you to forget what Instagram told you that means. Here’s what Pinterest is actually showing right now. Warm charcoal’s, softened blacks, mushroom stone greige and no, no, not flat. Contractor. Beige. Not 90s. Yellow beige. Tonal low contrast rooms, matte finishes instead of gloss. Minimal edited color stories and texture. Doing the heavy lifting instead of pattern. Now these are rooms that feel calm, intentional, and expensive without trying. Now here’s what this trend isn’t. It’s not telling you to make neutral art. It’s not beige on beige minimalism. It’s not trend chasing for artists. And if you hear quiet luxury and immediately think, oh God, now I have to mute my palette. No. You’re misunderstanding what’s happening. The trend is about the environment becoming quieter so the art can speak louder. Neutral environments center the art.
Miriam Schulman: High end buyers don’t want ten focal points. All fighting each other. They want calm architecture, restrained color, and one strong visual statement. In these rooms, bold art doesn’t read as loud. It reads as confident. Textured work doesn’t read as messy. It reads as intentional graphic black and white work doesn’t read as harsh. It reads as architectural. And this is increasingly reassuring if you’re an artist who doesn’t make trendy work because the trend isn’t about color trends at all, the trend is about restraint. So let me say that again. The trend is not about neutral art. It’s about neutral rooms incorporating bolder art. And here’s the collective psychology underneath that quiet room signal wealth performance. And they signal taste. And that kind of taste does not need to scream when the room itself isn’t compelling, buyers feel safer investing in a statement piece. The art becomes the only expressive object in the room, and when something is the only expressive object in the room, its perceived value goes up. Now I’m curious, and I want you to tell me in the comments. When you look at your own work, would it feel stronger in a calm tonal room, or are you currently imagining it in a busy, colorful space? Just tell me. Calm room or colorful room, because your answer reveals whether you’re underestimating how powerful Your work could feel in the right environment. This trend is not asking you to change your art. It’s asking you to understand the rooms your collectors are building.
Miriam Schulman: And when you understand the room, you understand how to close the sale. Pause just for a second. If you’re listening to this and thinking, okay, but does my art actually read as luxury in those rooms? Well, that’s exactly why I created the Luxury Positioning checklist. It helps you evaluate whether your website, your photos, your language, all of it aligns with the kind of spaces we’re talking about today. Because if your work belongs in high end environments, your presentation should reflect that. You can download it for free at SchulmanArt.com/Luxury. Now let’s keep going.
Miriam Schulman: Trend number two anti. Matchy-matchy. This one is my favorite. The anti-matchy trend. If you look at Pinterest language right now, you’ll see phrases like collected over time, layered interiors, personal storytelling curated, not styled and homes that feel lived in. That language matters because it tells you what buyers value and you know what’s quietly dying. Perfectly matched furniture sets are chosen to match the throw pillows over styled, showroom perfect rooms that look like nobody actually lives there. And the era of everything coordinates is fading. The era of everything has a story is rising. And this is huge for artists because. This trend supports narrative art. Imperfect series. Bodies of work that evolve instead of staying symmetrical and tidy. And it supports emotionally driven personal symbolic work. This gives you permission to stop overexplaining. Stop over polishing and it gives you permission to let your work feel like a chapter, not a catalog page.
Miriam Schulman: So let’s talk about the collective psychology behind this. Collectors do not want coordination. They want meaning, memory, authorship. They want someone to walk into their home and ask them, where did you find that? That question is social currency, and no one asks that about something that matches the couch perfectly. They assume, oh, they bought it when they bought the couch, probably at Ethan Allen. Okay. They do ask that about something that is distinctive, something with a point of view. And this trend destroys one of the most damaging beliefs that artists carry. The art has to match the sofa. Nope. Your art has to belong in somebody’s story, not their color palette. In fact, when art goes with everything, it often means it stands for nothing. Can I get an amen in the chat? Art collectors don’t want art that blends in. They want art that anchors the room. And here’s the teaching angle I want you to really hear. Cohesion in a home does not come from coordination. It comes from a point of view. When someone has a strong point of view, they can mix vintage with modern, bold with neutral, large with small. And it still feels cohesive because the cohesion lives in the taste. The cohesion lives in the tone. So if you’ve been shrinking your work to make it fit, you might actually be weakening its power. Collectors don’t want art that goes with everything. They want art that goes with who they are becoming. Trend number three biophilic design.
Miriam Schulman: And yep, that’s the word biophilic. It basically means humans have an innate desire to connect with nature, especially indoors. But what Pinterest is showing right now is not what most artists think. So here’s what’s actually trending. Botanical references, not botanical illustrations. Organic forms in irregular shapes. Earthy grounded palettes. Biophilic design principles. Handcrafted textures. Material honesty. You’re seeing curved furniture, plaster walls, lime wash, stone, raw wood, natural fibers, nature as atmosphere. Now here’s what’s not trending. Shiplap. Farmhouse. Kitsch. Cabin core. Literal. Landscapes. Everywhere. The Pinterest mood is not rustic cabin. It’s grounded, organic, modern. And here’s where artists misread this trend. They hear nature and think, oh, nature. Art is oversaturated, but Pinterest is not signaling representational nature. It’s signaling conceptual nature. It’s signaling organic rhythm. Repetition, irregularity, process, material depth. Now, this trend works beautifully for artists working in abstraction. It supports symbolic work. Textured surfaces. Repetition based mark making. And it supports artists exploring materials honestly instead of hiding them. So if you work with organic forms, layering erosion, growth, decay pattern, you’re already aligned with this trend. You don’t need to paint another tree. You need to understand that your work can function as part of a biophilic environment. And here’s the collective psychology underneath it that I want you to understand. Nature equals regulation, grounding, permanence. And this is especially appealing to urban high stress income buyers, high income buyers. They live in glass towers. They work in high pressure environments, and they are overstimulated constantly.
Miriam Schulman: And this completely aligns with what I’m seeing inside the artists incubator. So Andrea will link to her stuff@heritage.com. She creates these felted birch trees, and she shared with me that she thought that they’d be going into cabins, but they are mostly being bought by condo owners in Toronto because it reminds them of nature that they’re bringing into the city. They’re not looking to see a literal landscape of a forest. They’re looking to feel regulated, and art becomes a way to bring that feeling into a space. It’s not about depicting nature, it’s about embodying nature. So here’s the frame I want you to remember. Nature isn’t necessarily the subject anymore. It’s the language. And when you understand that, you stop asking, is nature art oversaturated? And you start asking instead, how does my work create atmosphere? That’s a completely different positioning In conversation, and that’s where serious collectors are thinking. Let’s bring this home. These trends are not about you changing your work. They’re about rooms buying art, and that’s a completely different lens. Pinterest isn’t dictating what artists should paint. It’s signaling where money feels safe landing, and it’s showing you the environments collectors are building before they ever step foot into a gallery. And when you understand the environment your work might enter, everything is going to shift. You’ll price with more confidence because you see how your work functions in a space not just on a white wall. And you stop apologizing for your style because you realize the trend is not about the color or the subject or the medium.
Miriam Schulman: It’s context. And you mark it without chasing trends. Because instead of asking what’s selling, you’re asking what are the rooms being built? And that is a more strategic question to ask. Artists who struggle are usually reacting to trends. Artists who grow understand where taste is headed and position themselves inside of it. So here’s the line. I want you to remember the artist who wind are not trend followers. They’re the ones who work belongs in the rooms where people are building. And once you see that, you stop chasing relevance and you start holding value. All right. I don’t want you to miss out on next week because next week we are actually going to be talking about the decentralization of luxury because of the headlines of Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf’s going out of business. I wanted you guys to be clear on something very important. This doesn’t mean people aren’t spending money. They definitely are. But instead of going to Saks or Bergdorf Goodman’s or Neiman Marcus. They’re going directly to Chanel and Hermes. And whatever the other brands are. And the same thing is true in the art market. Yes, there are galleries closing down, but instead people are going to art consultants. So this is a trend that you really need to pay attention to and understand to be a successful artist in 2026 and beyond. All right, my friend, I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook, at Facebook/SchulmanArt, on Instagram at @SchulmanArt and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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