The first thing that attracted me to Jim Drain (in the conceptual, inspirational, artistic sense, cause he is probably a spazzy lay), was, of course, his brightly colored african patterned enormous gangly knitted woven and beaded aids thing. First becuase it uses Povera materials. Second because it is awkward and bright. And third because it actually looks like my memory of those itchy aids viruses under an electron microscope or whatever.

The second thing I liked about him was that although he is the same age as me (early thirties), Modern Painters described him as “just out of his twenties.”

The third thing is the way he writes, with awkward words that weave together as gangily and satisfyingly as his fabric works. As when he commented on the limitations of his Forcefield collective’s maximalist intentions at the 2002 Whitney Beinniale, a point he seems to mark as the begining of the end for Forcefield:

where was I?

Ahh, yes, a point he seems to mark as the begining of the end for Forcefield,

“The problem with the Whitney Biennial was was that the museum did not give us the whole place. We could have squeezed out 30 more Roggaboggas, each unique and different. Somewhere in all that mess the goo turned into a leaping lizard that fell in a hole”

Now, only the last sentence of that had those words I was talking about. Really I included that to remind myself of the limits of maximalism within the mainstream artworld. He also said that Forcefield foregrounded ‘an undertone of agression that has since gotten mistaken for art gobbledy-gloop.’ Hmm, that wasn’t so amazing either, maybe its just the use of the letters g-o-o that get me going.

Okay, here’s one that’s more based on tone than laguage:

“I moved solo to Miami on Martin Kuther King Jr. Day, 2006. When I crossed into Florida, it was like walking down a long, lonely plank. Miami was the leap into Davy Jone’s locker. Now I see dolphins and manatees when I eat breakfast, hear parrots bicker and watch vultures circle the buildings.”

I guess it’s just about weaving yarns rather than just answering questions. Anyway, the point of this whole post is that I need to be aware of the limitations of maximialism, and that I’d love to be in a mad collective so maybe that Mill scene with Baca et al. is worth the cash.

And if that’s not misguided…