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HOME
AND SOUL
Robin Lennon Decorates From the Heart
Robin Lennon is a home designer. That doesn't mean she decorates
houses. That's something else, something she tried years ago, but
found it left her with a hollow feeling. Yes, she created beautiful
rooms. But she felt they reflected her own tastes and whims rather
than her clients dreams. Still with the eye of an artist, but now
also with the mind of a psychologist and the heart of a philosopher, she
works closely with her clients and students to create the kind of house
that is truly a home for the heart.
Just what is a home for the heart? Lennon says it is a magical place
that can encourage shy dreams, heal fractured souls and bring families
closer together. In short, it is the idyllic image of everything
a home should be.
Speaking with Lennon about home design is less a study in interior design
and more a lesson in possibilities. It is important, she says, "to
be in harmony with yourself and your surroundings and to pay attention
to when our environment is no longer a good foundation and support of
our hopes and dreams for the future."
Lennon, an exuberant woman who is both elegant and down-to-earth, has
learned this lesson herself and is now helping others to realize the
role their home plays in moving their lives forward. After a successful
but unfulfilling start as a painter and sculptor, Lennon says, "the
studio life of san artist tends to get lonely. I want to have
more of an impact on people's lives." So in 1979, she opened
her own company, Robin Lennon Inner Designs, and began to develop
her singular prospective. In 1997, her first book, Home Design
From The Inside Out, was published, and she is currently working on
her next, Living a Magical Life.
Lennon insists
that a home can be a nurturing and soulful place. But for it to
become that, she says, the people living there must have a strong hand
in design. Lennon has 20 years of experience designing homes,m is
a color specialist, and is on the facility of the first accredited consultant
training program in the country for Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art
of object placing. Still, she says, she could not do her work without
the creative imput of her clients and students.
Innate and abundant creativity, says Lennon, exists within everyone. It
is the kind of creativity that came unbashed in childhood when the only thing
to contain it was a smock. It was only the later, color inside-the-lines
mentality that dominated and crushed this free spirit.
Lennon encourages her clients to get back to "the dreams and wishes we had
when we were little, the things that really mattered but were forgotten along
the way."
Hence, every home should be unique like a fingerprint, for only in the depths
of one's personality can its expression be found.
This is why no two of her designs are ever the same. A standardized or
impersonal approach, she says, can lead to "inner homelessness," her
phrase for alienation within one's surroundings.
"So make a commitment," she says, "think about the kind of life
you need to be happy." Start by moving things around. Lennon
considers clearing space a great way to readjust the energy in the room. "Holding
on to clutter is a wy of saying that your past is more important than your future. Make
room for your future instead," she urges, "and it will find its way
to your home."
Especially in Manhattan, designing a home for the heart can be a challenge. Scarcity
of space aside, Lennon says she finds that many people design their homes to
gain others' approval. Or, if they seldom entertain and only use their
home as a pit stop, this too is not utilizing a home to its fullest potential
as a haven and inspiration. In designing a home, she says, one must search
for the heart's true desire and working to make the home a reflection of and
support system for this dream.
Lennon says she is unfazed by skeptics. "That's up to them. I've
seen it work in my life and in the lives of my clients and students. I
think as we come closer to the year 2000, people are becoming less interested
in external status and want to get to know themselves in a deeper way. I'm
a bridge to help people into the next phase of their life."
by
Polly Gwardyak (March 11-17, 1998) <
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