You don’t need to be Picasso to be an artist. At times, you don’t even need paint and a brush. Donovan Peterson is an artist who uses existing, worn out items to make new things. The process is also known as upcycling.
“At one point I just decided to quit saying ‘that’s a good idea, maybe I’ll do it some day and I just said, ‘okay lets do it.'”
He saw a community with a passion but no way to feed that passion.
“Missoula is a really progressive, really eco-friendly and they get jazzed about the local scene,” he said.
So Petersen created Upcycled, a business that doesn’t just REcycle your trash, it UPcycles them into something better. And Missoula was more than ready to accept the
company with open arms.“Every month was our best month up through August. It’s a good problem to have that we have so many amazing artists here in Montana upcycling that we’re running out of space.”
In the down economy, Petersen’s company continues to grow, next year he hopes to go global, by introducing his business to the online world.
Photo by Matt Gibson