Meet the master at saving money and contributing to his passion: Ken Butler. As an artist-musician, Ken has taken the initiative to transform the way we look at trash and encourage us to reuse the items we throw away for extraordinary creations. His passion: music. Ken creates classic instruments out of items he finds on the streets… Talk about the ultimate form of recycling!
The other amazing thing he is doing with his passion is bringing awareness to the pollution and trash excess in the streets of New York City. As our society strives to be more economic and environmentally friendly, Ken leads the way by creating a “juxtaposition” between the ugliness we perceive as trash and the beauty that comes from music. Whether it be through a broom, checker board, broken keyboard, or anything else, Ken’s imagination has no limits.
Ken has built over 400 unique instruments out of the objects he has rummaged through, and there is no indication of if/when he will stop. In the video above, Ken states “What I am doing is transforming your perception about our relationship to objects that we take for granted.” If you think about that in a literal sense, he is encouraging us to look at the objects we have in our life and take a step outside the box. We can save money and be more financially conscious by repurposing the objects we disregard and making them into a creation that we would actually use.
So next time you’re about to throw out that old chair, just watch and think about how Ken can use a simple screwdriver to undo the hinges and create a work of art from its individual pieces. The point is this: there are no limits, so don’t let the ordinary fool you into thinking there isn’t an extraordinary out there. It can be the key to saving you money, too.
