Layers of Paint and Purpose

Rebel Nell Repurposes Graffiti for a Good Cause

What began as a small jewelry project has evolved into a movement — one that fuses art, sustainability, and social impact to remind people that, like the graffiti itself, every life is made of many layers worth preserving.

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Amy Peterson, the founder of Rebel Nell.

Amy Peterson had aspirations to be the first female general manager in baseball. Now she’s got a new calling: owner and entrepreneur of Rebel Nell, a social enterprise to help women get back on their feet through creating and selling one of a kind graffiti jewelry pieces. The name comes from the former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt whose nickname was “Little Nell.”

Peterson spent 10 years working in various roles for the Detroit Tigers including Associate Counsel. She lived next door to a shelter and began striking up conversations with the women there. With these conversations, an idea started forming in her mind about a company that could help women who faced barriers to employment turn a corner with their lives through job training and support programs through the business and other partners. She hit on the idea of making jewelry since she and her co-founder Diana Roginson had jewelry backgrounds. 

Rebel Nell would employ the women and through partners like Teach Empower Achieve, (T.E.A.), a 501c3 workforce development program that Peterson and Roginson started to provide job training, financial wellness, self-esteem building and more. Rebel Nell also works with The Coalition on Temporary Shelter (COTS) to provide affordable housing to families who need it including social services, professional development, and more.

The impetus to use graffiti pieces came from Peterson on a run throughout Detroit. Peterson came across some graffiti pieces that had fallen from the wall. Noticing the layers of graffiti

from years of paint going over paint, she had the idea to use the wonderfully colorful graffiti pieces for necklaces and other jewelry. The idea stuck. The only important rule was that they never took graffiti from a wall, they always used stuff that had fallen down or been torn down. 

Originally, Peterson saw the jewelry as a means to an end. But one of her favorite moments was when one of the women they employed, a creative designer, sold her first piece of jewelry and was elated since someone saw value in her piece and loved it. “That was my moment where I was like: ‘This is a critical piece of the business, and the transformation that the women go through is the creative process,’” Peterson notes.

Almost 13-years later, Rebel Nell has worked with over 40 creative designers including refugees, women experiencing homelessness, women with mental and physical disabilities and more, to create pieces of jewelry and other accessories. “Not a single woman we've employed has gone back into shelter living,” Peterson explained. The company has created a place where the women can feel comfortable with the other women working there since they’ve gone through similar situations. On top of it all, the women have “this creative outlet through jewelry, which is very healing in the journey itself.”

In the past few years, Rebel Nell has had to pivot due to the pandemic and more recently the tariffs. “But how do you pivot in a way that stays true to who you are?” Peterson says, “For us, that was really leaning into telling our story, but doing it in a way that’s really interactive and what we believe in.” 

Peterson recalled going back to that moment when she picked up the graffiti from the ground and noticed the layers of graffiti paint. “What intrigued me about the piece was,“ Peterson says, “we only see the surface, but there's so many layers that make up that piece.” 

Rebel Nell did a team building exercise where the team added pieces to a mural, layer by layer. Not only did the project resonate with the team, someone from a nearby company had seen the piece walking by the studio and asked if Rebel Nell could run a similar exercise with their C-Suite.  “That has taken us in a different but related direction, where it's allowing us to really get to the heart of what we do,” Peterson notes. 

Now, companies can hire Rebel Nell for team building exercises where everyone adds their own layers and create something beautiful together. It’s especially important since we live in such divided times, Peterson says, not just in a political sense, but from working in hybrid and in-person working environments. It’s about “creating these connectivity points and realizing at the core of Rebel Nell is connecting people, place, and purpose.” 

In addition to mural team-building, Rebel Nell has been collaborating with other businesses and organizations, such as Michigan colleges and universities, professional sports teams, and historic sites. One of the most popular collaborations was the collaboration with the Detroit Zoo. The Detroit Zoo Water Tower had a ~30-year old vinyl mural named the “Parade of the Animals” that was going to be thrown out. Rebel Nell partnered to reuse the entire mural to make into jewelry and other accessories. 

Rebel Nell has repurposed the art from the water tower into jewelry.

However, the project was delayed a year when a peregrine falcon nested in the water tower. When she found a new home elsewhere, Rebel Nell and the Detroit Zoo moved forward with the project.

Instead of ending up in a landfill, pieces of the mural are now in their “forever homes.” Peterson explains that the earrings, necklaces and more “could be passed down, and people can share their stories of the zoo.”

These kinds of collaborations again reinforce what Peterson sees as the central mission of Rebel Nell: bringing together people, place, and purpose. It’s also great for marketing exposure. The partner organization helps advertise the collections to their audiences, which helps grow Rebel Nell’s reach. It also raises revenues for both Rebel Nell and the partner organization. 

Peterson estimates that they’ve saved about 4,000 pounds of waste by rescuing fallen graffiti and other materials, like the Detroit Zoo mural, and turning them into works of art. “Even from our graffiti perspective, we just pick up the chunks [of graffiti] when they're on the ground. Those [pieces] so easily seep into the earth,” Peterson notes.

Aside from the pandemic and economic chaos, Peterson says there’s not much she wished she’d known when she first started. “Every mistake, every challenge has made me better,” Peterson says, “even the really challenging parts of entrepreneurship has made me stronger [and taught me] how to manage my strengths and my weaknesses in an expedited fashion.”  It made her confront her own demons and fears. “I’m grateful for all of it,” she explains.

But she wishes she had hired an accountant earlier on. She knows that many entrepreneurs have limited funds especially when starting and opt to do their own bookkeeping. Unless you are a bookkeeper yourself, Peterson advises, don’t do it: “You’re gonna end up paying someone to fix all the mistakes you made anyway, so as an early expense at the very least, get a bookkeeper.”

The grand opening of the brick and mortar Rebel Nell location in Grand Rapids.

As for what’s next, Rebel Nell has the challenge of getting people to go to Rebel Nell’s newest brick and mortar store in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Especially in November and December, “I think people really really really need to understand the importance of shopping small because we’re taking a risk,” Peterson explains. “Every neighborhood, every community wants small businesses. That’s the number one thing they scream for is: we want to be able to walk to businesses.” But that’s only possible if people support small businesses. “Your dollars make a huge, huge, huge impact for small businesses,” Peterson concludes.

This holiday season consider your local shops and small businesses who make our neighborhoods what they are and what we want them to be.