So I remembered that I had a new blower/motor assembly out in my XFire spare parts stash. Went to look at it to see if I could pinpoint a source of the debris. Turns out the top of the stator lamination is painted green on the spare assembly. And the color shade is a very close match to what you shared with us in your photo above. So the "paint chips" you're referring to probably are exactly that. Exposure to environmental conditions over time could be causing the paint to flake off the lamination in the motor. Might be an initial indication that motor entered a failure mode and may need changing down the road. My $0.02 USD.

I've attached an image to show what I saw. Hope this helps.