Amy Peterson found her first piece of jewelry-making material under the Gratiot bridge in 2013. It was a chunk of fallen graffiti, layers of paint that had peeled off concrete and dropped to the ground. She picked it up, looked at the cross-section, and decided she could do something with it.
She also had a day job as an attorney for the Detroit Tigers. Eleven years later, Peterson is moving Rebel Nell, the jewelry company she co-founded with Diana Roginson, into a new headquarters and retail space in Eastern Market. The relocation, announced in November, takes Rebel Nell out of the Elijah McCoy neighborhood and puts it within walking distance of the spot where the original idea fell off a wall.
Rebel Nell is named after Eleanor Roosevelt, whose father called her Little Nell. Peterson thought the former first lady deserved a more aggressive nickname. The company employs women transitioning out of homelessness, in partnership with Detroit shelters and Peterson's nonprofit Teach Empower Achieve.
Roughly 50 women have come through the program since its founding. Most have moved on to traditional employment. A few have stayed and now run things.
The jewelry itself is an inventory of disassembled Detroit. Graffiti chips form the base of most pieces. Other materials have included pieces of the J.L.
Hudson's bag, the old Detroit Zoo water tower banner, scraps from the Packard Plant, locker room seats from the demolished Joe Louis Arena, and wallpaper from Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel. Each piece is one of one. The cross-section of paint layers gives every pendant its own pattern.
Peterson's stable of locations now spans Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Detroit Metro Airport, with the Eastern Market site as the manufacturing base and creative hub. About 14 women work the shop floor. They make rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and the signature pendants.
They also do design-your-own sessions for customers who want to assemble their own piece from the materials bin. The Eastern Market location places Rebel Nell among neighbors who do similar work in different mediums: butcher shops, distilleries, food producers, makers operating in industrial space the city kept rather than razed. It fits. Rebel Nell, Eastern Market, Detroit.
