EXCESS TURNED AGATE

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and where someone might simply see excess, someone else may envision enamel agate.

Fordite, also known as Motor City Agate, is essentially an automotive paint by-product. Yep, as gorgeous as it is, its origins are that unsexy. As the colorful acrylic enamels were applied to vehicles in the factory, the drip-off (known as slag) would accumulate and harden, with each different color forming a liquid layer. When the slag was sliced vertically, it was discovered that the paint layers swirled together beautifully into a marvelous man-made agate. As word spread about this unintended awesomeness, it became popular to polish pieces and fashion it into jewelry. Fordite was fairly abundant until the late 1970s when the electrostatic process for painting automobiles was introduced, which resulted in little or no excess, causing it to appreciate over time because its existence is finite. Imagine being the visionary who first salvaged Fordite from the factory floor.

Our foray into Fordite was a fortuitous one. As it turns out, the Geiman family is rife with creative talent and our collaboration expanded to include Dolan’s sister, Brecken, an artisan who fashioned Fordite into these remarkable pieces of one-of-a-kind jewelry, created custom to complement this collection.