Amazed

Amazed Amazed is a conceptual space for dreaming thinking and making created by Mike Farrell. Art installa

All because I decided to reupholster two chairs
06/08/2023

All because I decided to reupholster two chairs

You’ll get better photos on my Facebook post but let’s move along here with my most bitchen of books; this survivor sket...
08/22/2021

You’ll get better photos on my Facebook post but let’s move along here with my most bitchen of books; this survivor sketch journal of my 3 months studying medieval art and history- focusing on Charlemagne’s France. It survived a house fire in 1988 that I escaped barely but lost everything. Except this book and 3 others near it. I lost everything else. So all this beauty is real- patina, water damage, scorch marks, etc. I teased you with the drawing of dancing frog legs to set up the next chapter in Toulouse. I happily ate this dish when there to the horror of many (sorry but have to say “white”) girls from America who could not get over the disgust. Not only did I find them delicious but I could grab by food and get it to dance to a Kermit song across my plate. Disgust elevated to horror. My fave. Then the journal goes to Periguex- the region where the Lascaux caves are, and eventually Limoges. Enjoy!

Filter a day means 4 pages for a Bitchen book and this one is signed by Hurricane Henri.
08/22/2021

Filter a day means 4 pages for a Bitchen book and this one is signed by Hurricane Henri.

Another day another café. And each used filter creates 4 pages in a Bitchen book. Mikes Bitchen kitchen got more Bit...
08/18/2021

Another day another café. And each used filter creates 4 pages in a Bitchen book. Mikes Bitchen kitchen got more Bitchen this week as the new indoor herb garden got its fist trim last night for some herbed butter on a lonely shell steak. Things are good in this home.

So needed this morning. The twenty minutes on the hand grinder is literally my only reliable daily workout. Rise and s...
08/17/2021

So needed this morning. The twenty minutes on the hand grinder is literally my only reliable daily workout. Rise and shine it’s time to feed the caffeine monster.

Everyone should have one actual book- something physical in which they have recorded a sliver of life. I have only one ...
08/14/2021

Everyone should have one actual book- something physical in which they have recorded a sliver of life. I have only one that isn’t just a sketch book filled with notes and scribbles that is all mike code and no one will ever understand anyway- so this is it. And it survived, BARELY, my house burning down in Vermont in 1987. So as I continue to share pages- check out the damage; the patina, water damage, ink color changes (acid, water- acid is created by the ash of a fire), frays and tears and scorch marks- all real. It’s the most bitchen of all my bitchen books.

Up close and personal looking back over some of this stuff I used to like- calligraphy? Yeah, I’ve been through a hella...
08/13/2021

Up close and personal looking back over some of this stuff I used to like- calligraphy? Yeah, I’ve been through a hella artistic phases on this life’s journey. Hashing? Ink? Cursive? Colored Pencils? And I could look at a bridge and in my mind and with my hand turn the name of the bridge, and town, into a word-in-a-bridge? Sometimes I forget that it was my moments of most freedom- backpacking around Europe at 21 with only what I could glean from my dad’s Carte Bleu for money (glean….). It’s the free moments you have where you see who you really are and what you really want to do. Bitchen, huh?

Bitchen Books isn’t just an idea to make really badass books out of used coffee filters- it’s a thing for me. This is m...
08/13/2021

Bitchen Books isn’t just an idea to make really badass books out of used coffee filters- it’s a thing for me. This is my most bitchen of all bitchen books. It has the musings of a young me (21) living in and backpacking around Europe- finding myself in Marseilles where I made a life long friend with my French name Michel, and then jointing a university tour of 100 spots around what was middle age France to study art history and architecture of Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire. I built it like a diary with sketches and drawings and mostly poorly written thoughts on what I was learning. Poorly written does not mean not gorgeously “written”. Damn I knew how to get all cursive with ink back then. So the book survived my house burning down in 1987 (Vermont- near Mount Holly) and was one of the only things of value that survived. All the marks and water damage and scorches are real. The book is me and I am the book and f**k yeah I’m bitchen as f**k. Hope you enjoy as I share it’s new spot on the antique cash box on the Zinc garden table. And that is a very old handmade salt cured leather cincha- part of the “recado” in Argentina which is how a typical gaucho dresses his horse. The cincha keeps the mounting (saddles, blankets- 7 layers in Argentine mounting) firm and stable. It makes a really Bitchen Bitchen Book Weight.

Up so early my whole body fell in to the crack of dawn. I’m one of those people who if eyes wide open early enough will...
08/13/2021

Up so early my whole body fell in to the crack of dawn. I’m one of those people who if eyes wide open early enough will want to see the sunrise and snooze a snap siesta later in the day. My ritual begins with, you guessed it, the brew. Today two big scoops of Bustelo go in to the filter and it’s weird that now every time I make coffee I’m thinking about also making 4 more pages for a book. Weird. Cool, but weird. I almost walked to the river to see the sunrise but after all the work in the green installation- in and on and around the well naturally lit old zinc table- instead I sat with my coffee turned on the pipe lamp I made years ago and looked at stuff. The African beads- I need to ask Diego who is on the medallion. An Orixa? It’s not 7 yet but the sun has already squatted the house. Coffee is hot sweet and light, and the miche toast with butter and orange marmalade hits the spot. It may be time for a “nappuccino”. Then I think I’ll stitch up a book while decarboxolating some Sister Glue. Have a Bitchen Friday y’all.

When you’re a cook and you love being in your kitchen and you get to look at your morning coffee filter and also think “...
08/11/2021

When you’re a cook and you love being in your kitchen and you get to look at your morning coffee filter and also think “oh damn this is going to make for some beautiful pages in a Bitchen book, you know you’ve lived your life right. No matter what the stupid people say. (They’re all put on notice anyway now and this boy is happy and healing)

I would like to sell (i need to sell for several reasons) this very special Bitchen Book. It is the second in a series ...
08/09/2021

I would like to sell (i need to sell for several reasons) this very special Bitchen Book. It is the second in a series I started early this summer and it has a bloody past. You can learn more on my IG but this page has more followers so this is the story. When I sliced off my thumb on a mandoline slicer 5 weeks ago I was racing to finish this book for a wedding gift that my sister wanted to give. Without getting into a lot of detail, the very small little heart I painted on the page of two books- one for Maureen’s 56th birthday and one for my sister is painted in my blood. To me that I had done this was one of those miraculous lucid and rare moments in a artist’s life where something beautiful happens and every layer of meaning of the work from the first spark of the creative process through the learning how and the struggling with medium to the finish product. To my sister (and while I’m not sure I believe her, to the ultimate recipient) it was gross. All she could see is that it had my blood in it. No, I’m serious. Now, I get people weirded out all the time with my work- they often need little boxes to put me in to be comfy. You’re dark. You’re crazy. You’re an “artist”. (Crazy in Mormon lexicon). This book and what happened and therapy was for me a sign it was time to let go- to stay with my enormous family of choice and stop pretending that the one I was born into would ever really understand or accept me. Gay. You gotta accept that first- with all your heart. Because all of this- my life’s journey- without the pain of coming out- means nothing. Ok, so the project is supposed to support an idea I have to open a studio of Young Artists & Markers in Harlem (working on it) and mentor teach share and sell products. With a twist. No Pricing. You tell us your story. Why you should be able to purchase a book (or product we are making). If we love your story- you get one. Then, after you’ve a chance to think about the whole thing- we ask you to compare your socioeconomic reality compared to the rest of America. And you then Venmo us the price you choose. This book is special. I need it to go to the right person. Is it you?

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