As a painter, I’ve always been drawn to surface. Not a superficial surface, but more like the surface of the ocean—a membrane that reflects the depths below. A thin layer that communicates something deep and material. When my partners and I started an architecture firm, Mutuus Studio, just over eight years ago, I struggled to understand how this sensitivity to surface could express itself within such a technical and structural discipline. Around the studio, the word “patina” surfaced as an important idea. We purposely set out to create a new model for our practice—integrating architecture with interior design, custom handmade fabrication, and public art. In those early days, our clients would often ask why we talked so much about patina, and what it meant to us. Clearly, it was a word that touched on something essential, but what did it really mean? It was flexible and evocative, yet its meaning often felt elusive.
In classic form, let’s see what Merriam-Webster says:
So “patina” can refer to a physical surface altered by time or chemicals, a kind of aura developed through long-term use or memory, or simply a superficial finish. It can be both fact and fiction. What a slippery word.
When I think of patina, I often return to one of my favorite definitions of art, popularized by the critic Michael Fried. In his 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood,” Fried argued that art is about the conditions of its own making. The materials used, the political climate, the tools, the dialogue of the time, and the artist’s intent all shape the work. One of my favorite examples of this is Robert Morris’s piece Box with the Sound of Its Own Making. It’s a simple wooden box that plays a recording of the sounds made during its construction—an acknowledgment that no material object exists outside of time and that time itself adds meaning and dimension.
In its first definition, patina is an accumulation of time. Copper, bronze, and other metals react with air and chemicals in the environment to form a thin layer of change. It’s an honest record of substance interacting with context—a “live finish” that continues to evolve. One of the outdoor lights we make at the studio is left as raw copper. After six months of rain, it develops a remarkable multicolored patina from the acidity of the Pacific Northwest’s weather. The environment literally imprints itself on the object. Its location becomes part of it, grounding it in place and time. I’ve come to relish this process. Lately, I hesitate to polish away solder marks or torch scars. Instead, I leave them visible—evidence of fabrication. Sometimes I’ll heat an object with a torch and place it in wet grass, moss, and pine needles to cool, letting the landscape take a swipe at the design.
Nature tends to make its own aesthetic decisions, whether we ask for them or not. I’ve been thinking a lot about lichen lately. Lichen is slow, stubborn, and quietly spectacular. It’s like nature’s version of graffiti: totally uninvited, but somehow better than what was there before. It doesn’t just sit on the surface—it fuses, integrates. Lichen is the long game.
Same goes for the bark of fruit trees. Out in my yard, the pear and apple trees wear these complicated coats of color—slate gray with orange, hints of green or even lavender if the light hits it right. Bark records frost and sun and the occasional rogue squirrel. It’s not trying to be pretty, but it ends up being a map of everything the tree has been through. That, to me, is the best kind of surface—unintended design that’s earned over time. As a painter, it seems masterful.
I’ve been slightly obsessed with this concept of submerging my metal light fixtures in saltwater to grow barnacles on them. Is it over the top? Definitely. But the idea of handing something off to the ocean and letting it have its way is incredibly appealing. It would come back crusted in a way I could never plan—a sort of oceanic collaboration. Would it be functional? Probably not. But it would be honest. That’s the kind of patina you can’t fake. It’s a full surrender to time, tide, and tiny sea creatures. I, in fact, did suspend four fixtures from a buoy at our cabin in the Hood Canal. Unfortunately, they broke free and sank in 40 feet of water. My son and I have gone magnet fishing trying to find them. Someday I’ll scuba down, and I’m sure they will be epic.
When I remodeled my kitchen, I made a custom stain for the cabinets. Between raising two young kids and building a new business, the project stretched on for three years, to my wife’s understandable frustration. By the end, the stain had concentrated and cured unevenly, leaving each cabinet a slightly different tone. Though I have some OCD tendencies (I call it CDO—alphabetical order, of course), I chose not to redo them. Instead, I embraced the patchwork result as an honest timeline of the work. In this way, the narrative is embedded in the space. Patina wasn’t easy to accept at first, but parenting is a shortcut to embracing scrapes, scuffs, dings, and gray hairs. After refinishing our wood floors for the third time, one of my kids dropped a pair of scissors, point-down like darts. They stuck into the floor. I sighed and accepted imperfection for good. This year I severed several tendons in my hand and gained some new patina in the form of scars. The world imprints itself on us too.
Years ago, I worked as an art handler maintaining outdoor sculptures throughout Seattle. I learned a lot about how different chemicals react with bronze to create specific colors. We used colored waxes to blend repairs. Most of the time, we were trying to preserve an artist’s intended finish, protecting it against time—and seagull poop. In these cases, patina wasn’t a byproduct; it was the finish itself, deliberately developed for preservation. That process opened a world of archaic chemistry for me. I still keep a book of patina recipes that I use to create custom finishes for clients—on metalwork, hardware, and lighting. I’ve probably raised a few flags with all the lab gear and obscure chemicals I’ve purchased. But I’ve always liked the saying that magic is just technology we don’t understand yet. The reverse is also true. The alchemy of the past can seem just as mysterious as the promise of the future. As these old techniques recede from everyday use, they develop their own patina of mystery.
An essential quality of any material is that it must endure time. Patina makes that endurance visible. A dusty bottle of port in a Portuguese wine shop is charming; the same bottle on a grocery shelf can feel suspect. Context shapes perception. I once flew on a plane in Russia that had a little too much patina—hand-painted wooden tray tables, threadbare seats, unexplained sirens. It was unnerving.
Like all things, patina requires discretion. It’s not about decay, but about understanding how time affects surface, substance, and perception. In our studio, we often mix vintage elements with new work to build a sense of layered time, placing our clients in a continuum. When done right, this can be deeply comforting. Surface as substance.
The word “finish” is tricky. It can refer to a process, a coating, or an ending. And patina, depending on how you see it, can be all three—or none. Many modern finishes aim for stability, economy, ease. Often, that’s appropriate. But sometimes, it feels like a denial of time. Materiality is not static. I hope to always find beauty in the way time wears on the world. From well-worn jeans, Japanese Boro fabrics, and deeply grooved stairs to Restomod cars and the scars on my hands, I want to keep honoring the substance of surface as an essential quality of material. As a painter, this is still my way into the world: through the depths of surface.
%20Painting%20Outside%202.jpg)
