patina · the verdigris of forgotten metal

tarnish

what copper becomes when no one is looking. the colour of an unpolished candlestick. the colour of the brass plate on a door whose bell has not rung in years.

tarnish is a slow colour. it does not happen in a day. you find it on the cutlery in the back drawer of the kitchen, on the buckle of an old bag in the basement, on the rim of any object that lives in fog or near the sea. it is the patience of metal made visible.

a colour that is, technically, damage. but the damage looks like memory, and the memory looks like beauty, and so we keep it.