Ford Wallace Ford - was born in 1950 and grew up in Michigan. When he was four years of age Ford's mother, unable to financially care for the child, had the young boy declared a ward of the state. He was interned at the Coldwater State Hospital until he was legally of age, then released to a half-way house in Pontiac (where he has lived off and on for the last six years).

Although no real relation to the automobile family can be proven, Ford’s mother had worked as a seamstress at the family’s Rose Terrace mansion. She was released from the household when it was discovered that she had become pregnant out of wedlock. Destitute, she quickly found herself in a home for teen mothers, through which she subsequently relinquished custody of her infant son. The artist’s name soon took on the double Ford appellation due to a lifetime in institutions, where each morning’s roll call  began “Ford, Wallace?” and was responded to: “Present, Wallace Ford.”

It was only at the age of forty-one, while spending hobby time at a vocational rehabilitation center, that Ford taught himself to paint. His life has been magical since that discovery of unbounded talent.