Fordite Series

When I learned about the existence of Fordite a few years ago I kind of went into a tailspin. There is a mythical quality to the automotive industry in this country—what happened in Detroit—the boom and the bust of it and now its resurrection at the hands of a new wave of innovators and artists taking it back in a new way. (This is so “us” by the way—and by “us” I mean American—we know how to rebuild. We know how to bounce back—it’s in our DNA). But back to Fordite...in the automotive factories, on the floors where they paint the cars, the paint layers and forms a hard surface. Some enterprising person at some point realized that chiseling it off allowed for it to be formed into jewelry, pens,the handle to a pen knife....many things actually. And yes, like a true stone it can be used in our #allinlayseries.  I am told that the age of the Fordite can be determined by the colors of the paint—colors that were prevalent during certain eras. As I worked with our stone cutter to figure out how to “slice and dice” it, it occurred to me that as we cut through different layers of the paint we were, in essence, exposing history. It’s hard not to visualize the men (and women perhaps but doubtful) who painted those cars...... That it was once just simply old dried up paint on a floor and is now “precious” is the stuff of my dreams. In 18K yellow gold. These are the pieces we have chosen to utilize this quirky colorful material.