Overview

The phrase patina of play is a term of art referring to the look of items and spaces that have been used for play. You can with a glance that the items have been engaged with. Be it a grass stained and dirty Nerf football or the gloriously paint-covered table in the above photo, items used by children for play and exploration take on a certain patina. Like a well-used baking sheet, playful learning leaves marks on surfaces.

We here at Playvolution HQ appreciate play spaces that have a lived-in look–an aesthetic of use. These spaces reveal and revel in their purpose. Play spaces that always look catalog-fresh seem lacking in comparison.

Note that there’s a difference between spaces that have this patina of play and spaces that are neglected or items that are damaged. Wooden blocks that have been used so heavily that they are splintering, for example. Or paintbrushes so caked in dried paint that they are no longer useful.

It should also be noted that balance is important. In our eyes, a setting where every surface looked like the table above would have a jarring Lord Of The Flies vibe.

Let’s look at some examples:

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This space reminds Sam of an art classroom from her youth. It reminds Jeff of his children’s playroom back in the early 90s.

You can tell kids Do Stuff here. It has a feeling of disorganized organization. Things have homes, but there’s not a lot of fussiness. The space is a reminder that art is a process.

Could the space use 20 minutes of tidying? Sure. But it probably gets that on a semiregular basis. If it didn’t, it’d quickly get that Lord Of The Flies vibe.

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One way to avoid that LOTF vibe is to have designated mess management items like the woven tray below. Notice how it is splattered with paint while the surface it sits on is relatively paint-free.

Items like this tell the Stuff Happens Here story without overwhelming the entire space. It’s also probably more comfortable for adults–parents and staff–who like things a bit neater.

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The easel is nearly spotless, but the table and tray tell are splattered with play and exploration.

The floor mat is there to help manage the mess, the visible walls are not spattered, but the space still has the patina of play.

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The patina of play is in the eye of the beholder. Sam feels this easel could use a refresh. She says, “it seems like the paint has created a textured layer on the easel, so some paper might not lay flat” and she wants to scrape it off to level the surface.

Jeff, on the other hand, thinks it’s just getting interesting and sees any paint build up as a loose part–a variable in the environment–to be engaged with. He’s wait to do any scrapping or refreshing of the surface until the kids suggested it.

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Sam’s concerned the lids won’t fit on the paint pots due to the caked color and wants to give them a scrubbing. They may indeed need it.

Jeff spent time in this room (in a southern Australian center) and fell in love with these two huge tables. They exemplify his patina of play aesthetic. But he agrees with Sam about the paint pots. He’d toss them in the water play table next time they were mostly empty and let the kids give them a scrub before returning them to service. You just know that four-year-old Luanne would find picking away at the dried paint around the lips of the jars very satisfying.

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Sam says this shot makes her uncomfortable. Does this one show the patina of play, or is it just messy? Do the paint chunks forming on the brushes add a variable to the environment that some kids might find interesting, or do they make the brushes burdensome to use?

The likely answer to the above questions is “probably a bit of both”. It depends on your outlook. One person’s “patina of play” is another’s “get me a bucket of hot soapy water and a paint scrapper! NOW!”

One thing we hope everyone can agree on is that snagging containers from the recycling bin and giving them a new life in early learning classrooms is a great idea.

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Patina Of Play Conclusions

This post focused on the patina of play in the craft area, but you’ll notice it all over if you look for it. From kids books to mud play, the patina of play is everywhere. Our main goal here was to introduce the term–it’ll pop up frequently in this series of posts. You’ll find more play space critiques here.

Brought to you by Explorations Early Learning
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