My helpful son Rob Coons has introduced me to Instagram, and it feels like my first taste of Haagen Dazs. My phone has been transformed like the Kroger freezer section was transformed back in the 70's. It feels like a different instrument--now it has stacks and stacks of eye-candy on it!

I'm late to the party, I know--lots of you have been using this visual library since 2010. The timing is good for me; I'm ready for inspiration. I'm the kind of girl who takes a stack of antique picture books to bed and geeks out on the styles and colors, but Instagram is a window to what's fresh and new. And global! I like seeing cool, fun illustrations with captions in Japanese characters or Cyrillic script, and I'm tickled when they "like" what I do.

In the world of art, I've camped on old favorites and eschewed new things, figuring they weren't time-tested and therefore not as good. And I didn't want to be trendy; I wanted to be a classic, so I didn't bother with new-fangled ideas, darnit. Didn't want to be tricked by a fad, and anyway, I'm old enough to recognize some fads as recyclings of fashions I wasn't crazy about in the '60's. But I'm deciding that I'm well able to use my heart and eyes as a taste filter, not the date on the artwork.

So anyway, if you use Instagram, follow me there at marycoonsdesigns. If you use it a lot, I'd love tips on hashtags, because choosing them mystifies me.