Faux Flair

It’s a decorative finish applied to everything from walls to switch plates, making the surface look like something it’s not.

Faux, of course, is French for “forgery” or “imitation.” Coupled with fur, it means no life’s been lost to fashion. Coupled with paint, it means a flat wall (or any architectural surface) is reborn in the image of wood, stone, brick, tile, leather or maybe even sheet metal.

Faux is an eye-fooling forgery that can give a new wall the elegance of age, add whimsy to a child’s bedroom and value to a home, say area faux painters who make a living plying this clever art of fakery.

They also say that faux painting has the edge over other wall coverings, particularly wallpaper, with its unsightly seams, curling corners and occasional wrinkles.

Faux painter Alicyn Wright of Signature Designs says a faux finish lends a timeless quality to a room and can provide a backdrop for many different decorating styles.

“One of the hottest finishes is probably plaster,” Wright says in a telephone conversation. She’s just completed applying faux finishes to a new home in Park City’s Tuhaye neighborhood. Walls throughout the main living area have been color-washed in a careful manipulation of paint and glaze that blend in earth-toned warmth. The walls in the dining room, the powder room and an accent wall in the master bedroom are finished with Venetian plaster.

Venetian plaster has a crushed marble base, explains Tom Carlson, a fine artist whose work is shown at the Coda Gallery on Main Street – but whose bread and butter income-wise is faux painting. The marble base provides shine. The plaster becomes shinier the more it’s worked. The sheen develops as the pre-tinted plaster is applied to the wall with a stainless steel trowel.

“The higher the polish, the more laborious it is,” he says. And the more pricey. Indeed, Carlson says, a high gloss on a Venetian plaster finish can be prohibitively spendy.

Faux painters add color to already tinted plaster, making each wall or room a unique statement not duplicated on any other wall.

“I actually take pre-colored plasters and mix them together to create new colors. Every layer has three or four mixed colors in it,” Wright says. “I like to create my own finishes to make what I do different from what other faux finishers are doing.”

Carlson uses paper bags and rags, and sea or synthetic sponges to work colored glazes together. He has applied brown bag paper to walls with an adhesive. The paper dries, creating its own texture. Painted a rich, deep red, it bears a striking resemblance to worn, soft leather.

Carlson steers clients to a less-is-best approach when faux finishing. “There’s a lot of bad faux out there,” he says. “I’ve really incorporated this idea that furniture and art should [make] a statement, but you don’t want them to swallow a room. The same is true for faux.”

Don’t want a faux finish to become a designer faux pas? Sometimes just an accent wall will do — and do very well.

Faux painter Sarah Peterson Berkowitz, who works under her Venue banner, asks clients to compile a collection of pictures torn from magazines that will tell her what sorts of colors and designs they like. The creased, torn pictures speak volumes about what the person finds appealing. What’s “in” in faux painting, Berkowitz explains, depends on the person and the house.

On a warm, sunny afternoon, Berkowitz sits at a dining room table in a client’s log home. The owner has had several of the interior chinked log walls plastered over to give the home less of a rustic, and more of a refined tone. The homeowner is an art lover, Berkowitz explains. So Berkowitz has tinted foyer and dining room walls a soft gray and lime, and painted the kitchen and living room a warm golden glow to provide a more suitable backdrop for collected art.

Like Carlson, Berkowitz is a fine artist, though her skill comes from an arts and crafts upbringing. The daughter of a home economics teacher, she says, “I’ve been doing arts and crafts since I was 5 years old.” Berkowitz spent time as a clothing designer, lived in Paris and Los Angeles — and firmly believes everything she’s done to date has set the stage for the faux finishes she applies now on commercial and residential walls.

“You’re lucky when it all comes together knowing the easiest way to get there, keeping the artistic appeal. At some point, though, the art stops and it turns into production.”

Her faux passion extends to the details of deception such as switch plates so intricately painted they match the seam and grain of their stone or wood surroundings. They’re so camouflaged, the homeowner might have to feel her way to the electric outlets.

Berkowitz paints wall and ceiling murals in a bathroom that put you under the sea with oversized sea turtles or a great white shark swimming out of the deep-blue gloom. Look up and there’s the underside of a fishing boat, water ripples spreading outward. There are decorative finishes over fireplaces that fool the eye into believing the fireplace extends to the rafters. She paints metal doors installed in observation of fire codes to look like they’re made of wood.

Faux painters all share the belief that this is where the art of faux is headed — to the artistic challenge of making things look like something else. A brand new home has ancient plaster walls; a contemporary interior has an accent wall crafted of stainless steel; they’re all really clever combinations of paints and glazes.

There might even be a bean stalk, curling up out of a window that isn’t a window at all.

Fee! Fie! Faux … Fun!

Ann Johnson moved to the Park City area in 1995. She produces the KPCW Mountain Money program.