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Creative Life
00000177-ba84-d5f4-a5ff-bbfc9ab20000Our series Creative Life discontinued on October 30th, 2017. It has been replaced by Ways of Life. The Creative Life archive lives on this page. Creative Life offered an audio tour of arts, culture, and inspiration on the Cape and Islands. Our region is rich with creative diversity, and so are the stories we tell.Creative Life is edited by Jay Allison.Creative Life is made possible by The Circle of Ten, ten local businesses and organizations committed to local programming on WCAI.

A Grown-Up Playground Turns Castoffs into Art: The Atlantic Workshop

Lobster traps become lamps, boat hulls become wall sculptures and portholes become ice buckets. All that happens in a 30 by 50 foot space with 40 foot ceilings in South Chatham. Scott Feen founded his company, the "Atlantic Workshop: Repurposing Redefined" five years ago and thinks that he's made 5000 pieces so far.  

Scott was living and working in San Francisco but when he came back to Cape Cod with his family, he reinvented his own life and turned his passion into his business. The business is doing well, Scott produces pieces every day and sells them in his gallery. Everything that he uses has been something else before, he repurposes all sorts of objects, turning them "into something fun", as he describes it.

"I don't come to work, never ever feel like I am coming to work."

The pieces Scott produces are not only repurposed but altogether redefined; most of them are non-recyclable furniture that he turns into art.

Scott Feen enjoys working in his workshop but the handcraft is not the only thing he gets to do. "What I really love doing is finding that obscure piece and having a vision for it."

When Scott started his company he used to take his truck and drive all over the Cape to find pieces he could repurpose. The workshop is chock full and in front of it he has a huge trailer filled with historical parts of barns, boats, houses and furniture pieces. Even though it seems as if he could never ever use all of those things, Scott says that he only takes what rally inspires him. None of the pieces would stay in his workshop for months without being used.

Creative Life is edited by Jay Allison and made possible by The Circle of Ten, ten local businesses and organizations committed to local programming on WCAI.