Have you seen or heard of 'Fordite' before?If not, would you believe that this beautiful stuff is made of paint? It's layer upon layer of car paint. Fordite comes from old automobile factories and it's now in limited supply because it was a by-product of the hand spray-painting process which no longer happens. All cars are painted by machines and high-tech processes these days.
The pieces of Fordite in these photos came from the British Leyland factory in Cowley in the early seventies. How can I be so precise? Because my Dad made these! We have three pieces of Fordite (or 'Leylandite' as Dad likes to call these) but I can only find two of them at the moment. I remember sitting on Mum's bed as a child having a good old sort through her jewellery box and these pretty pieces always fascinated me. Back in the day Mum used to wear the triangular one as a pendant. Groovy!
Dad said that the overspray from the car painting process used to build up on the trolleys that carried the car bodies, colour upon colour, layer upon layer and these pieces of Fordite/Leylandite contain all the British Leyland car paint colours from the early seventies. Dad and his workmates used to chip off chunks of built-up paint with a screwdriver and they would then cut and polish them into all sorts of shapes. Dad said it is very similar to working with acrylic or Perspex.
I think this material is fantastic - it's like funky agate. You can still get hold of it in the form of cabochons and shaped pieces on eBay and suchlike but as I said, it's no longer made so what's out there is all there is. There is a great website dedicated to the wonder of Fordite - www.fordite.com - which has a wealth of information on this wonderful stuff. There is also a whole host of photographs of handmade jewellery featuring Fordite over on Flickr.Fab stuff!
