The first time I met Jim Drain was in 2012 at Diana Stockton’s horse ranch in St. Helena, California. Jim was in California with his collaborator Ara, for a pin-wheel installation. The three of us walked to the end of White Sulphur Springs Road where a redwood forest begins. We talked all night about many things, including Jim’s art, which combines knitting, sculpture, garment-making and textiles in bright, conceptual forms. Afterwards, for my birthday, Jim sent me a sculptural chain made of multi-colored cotton and 12 rich hued spools of thread to inspire me to start knitting. Here, we are talking once again about art, inspiration, the true definition of being an artist.

Editor-in-chief Autumn Hrubý interviewing American artist Jim Drain in New York City, April 19, 2016.

Hesperios

The first time we met was on Diana Stockton’s horse ranch in St. Helena, California, where I was living at the time in 2012. Diana’s son Hugh had sent you to have dinner with us. You came to California with Ara for the pin-wheel installation you were doing for Hall Winery. That was a very special night. Have you been back to St. Helena since?

Jim Drain

My sister is getting married in St. Helena. It will be the first time back since Ara and I were there together and I cannot wait.

Hesperios

How many pin wheel installations have you created all over the world? How many are permanent installations and where are they?

Jim Drain

The Hall Winery installation is the first and likely the only permanent one. Ara and I first created the work in 2005 in Miami and it has since taken us to Moscow, Los Angeles and New York. With each showing we would expand upon it so by the time we showed it in Los Angeles there were 72 pinwheels (having started with fifteen).

Hesperios

Do you still work together with Ara?

Jim Drain

We worked together on What Nerve this past summer at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York for a group show that included the first works we made together as the four-person group Forcefield.

Hesperios

The word artist is loosely used these days. What is your definition of an artist?

Jim Drain

I keep the definition pretty open: it is anyone willing to challenge the status quo.

Hesperios

I know this has been an important transition in your life, what have been a few personal highlights during this time? What have you discovered through this process?

Jim Drain

Once you move a crate of records, or a box of bad bolts or a pile of old t-shirts, you realize that you really are just leasing your own property.

Hesperios

Aside from getting your new house in order, what are your plans for Los Angeles right now?

Jim Drain

We just installed a drip irrigation system with a timer for the two raised beds in the back yard. And it works!

Hesperios

We are doing some collaborations together for the next collection SS17, what was your inspiration for the pattern you made for the Hess/Drain sweater? A jacquard riff on the Jamaican flag?

Jim Drain

I always wanted to continue with that pattern. When I first started showing work, I saw that what I was making in a small studio in Pawtucket, once it exits the front door, it enters into an international dialogue. I began looking at flag designs as ‘invested graphics,’ as symbology more than graphic patterning. It was a reflection upon that international discourse my artwork was entering and altering the Jamaican flag was part of that. I saw it as an homage to ‘King Tubby’s’ dub experimentation.

Hesperios

How did you first come to knitting and what was the first thing you made?

Jim Drain

Elyse Allen and Liz Collins were my knitting mentors. Providence is a treasure chest of knitting resources. I first knit lengths of fair isle that I hot glued together. These were shown in the What Nerve show.

Hesperios

Which childhood books were you read to as a child?

Jim Drain

The steam engine that went up the hill “I think I can, I think I can,” and something about a duck from “Peking.” They were the biggies.

Hesperios

What ideas did your family instill in you as a child?

Jim Drain

Sometimes lessons just happen. When my parents separated, there was not anyone to cut the lawn so we let the backyard just go to seed. The weeds were nicer.

Hesperios

When did you come to the conclusion to pursue your life as an artist?

Jim Drain

I was pretty determined to be an artist and once my Mom died it was an all-or-nothing thing.

Hesperios

Did you realize you wanted to be an artist when you were young or did you have other ideas?

Jim Drain

I could draw ducks and Garfield pretty well. It seemed like destiny.

Hesperios

What are you listening to right now, what is on your playlist?

Jim Drain

I love the Fluxus artist Joe Jones. He approaches sound sculpturally.

Hesperios

What are you working on right now?

Jim Drain

We are finishing up Pleated Gnomon, a public sculpture for Key Biscayne.

Hesperios

How did the sculpture commission come to be for the US Embassy in Marrakesh and what was the process like to make this?

Jim Drain

RISD facilitated the commission with Virginia Shore, the curator of Art in Embassies. It began as a collaboration with several RISD students. Our nine-week class became a workshop for creating a toolbox of ideas and research we continued to develop beyond the class.

Hesperios

How was your experience visiting Marrakesh? How long did you stay there for and what was it like to work with the local artisans there on your sculpture or did you already have it made and shipped there?

Jim Drain

The install in Rabat was short and sweet. I think it took four days. It allowed for a fifth day to drive up to Tangier. It was great to travel with embassy people because we got a more thorough tour of the American Legation and nearby alleyways.

Hesperios

In your experience, is there a group of artisans or craftsman you have collaborated with on a project that were really exceptional?

Jim Drain

I love to collaborate with local artisans outside the United States. Exhibiting work internationally usually means installing with students interning from local Universities. The student interns in Rome were the most fun. We would get drinks at the bar afterward. The bartender was a purple-haired beauty that told us life is “boring, boring boring.”

Hesperios

What was your most fond memorable live-in artist experience. Why was it memorable?

Jim Drain

My shoes were soaked from the rain and I thought putting them in the oven would help. It just melted my shoes and made the oven stink and my roomies mad. Our side of the warehouse space did not have windows so I hammered a hole into cinderblocks, thinking I would put a window in there eventually. It was cool during the summer but I never put a window in and it made that side pretty cold during the winter. I stole other people’s food from the fridge and it pissed people off. We threw rotten fruit at a band playing from Detroit and they loved it and it became a real mess. I would fall asleep to Lightning Bolt rehearsing because I needed to work in the morning. There was a guy named Lake who appeared one day and sat in an e-z boy chair and did not move for three days. Then he was gone.

Hesperios

What is your top three list of materials to work with?

Jim Drain

Glitter, love, Elmer’s Glue.

Hesperios

What is the first piece of advice you would give to an artist who wants to support themselves being creative, but not lose their integrity in the process?

Jim Drain

I would say, “You better bring something dope into existence or else you are wasting everyone’s time.”

Hesperios

I’m interested in cinema and how certain pictures you watched as a kid made an impact, which films had this kind of effect on your psyche growing up?

Jim Drain

The Emerald Forest and Fox and the Hound.

Hesperios

I wanted to ask you what inspired to do the butterfly watercolor cut-outs for Eric Goode’s annual Turtle Ball?

Jim Drain

I was thinking about a garden made of bristles and thorns and tried to imagine what animals existed in that space.

Hesperios

What have you been dreaming about lately, any consistent themes or symbols?

Jim Drain

 I dreamed that I saved a dog last night. It was in the New York Harbor.

Hesperios

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

Jim Drain

Put my glasses on.

Hesperios

What keeps you going when you are in between projects or commissions?

Jim Drain

Faith.

Hesperios

What keeps you uplifted during the downward spiral phases?

Jim Drain

Louie Anderson in Baskets.

Hesperios

Do you ever consider making music again or was Forcefield a one time musical project?

Jim Drain

Forcefield was an infinity-time thing and I do wanna make music again. I probably will and keep it for myself.

Hesperios

Mentors?

Jim Drain

Renters.

Hesperios

You inspired me to knit and you shared a lot of advice that I took to heart, was there someone who did that for you, in RISD and thereafter?

Jim Drain

Yes, def. Elyse and Liz were there for me completely. I think that is part of the textile world.

Hesperios

If you were given an unlimited budget and could make a film adaptation of your favorite book, which would it be?

Jim Drain

Soul on Ice. It was the first one that came to mind. Adapting an Octavia Butler story would be amazing. But, her stories are probably best when read. I’d love to make The Savage Detective but with a binaural soundtrack in a theater that rained.

Hesperios

Any projects coming up that we should know about. That you’re excited about?

Jim Drain

I am excited to be back in the studio being hands-on again. A lot of the public work projects have necessitated being more of a manager which is fine, but I like thinking through material a lot more.

Hesperios

If possible, tell me about a dream project that you would like to do?

Jim Drain

For me, making an exhibition is like writing a short story. You can really form a place and time. But, there is not one dream project. For me, it is less about the home-runs and more about staying consistent and keeping a solid practice and being present as a human being with the people I love. Everything else is baloney.