Jim Vecchi
The Videos
Born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, growing up among the children and grandchildren of immigrants who worked in steel mills and related industries, never once did I suspect I would become an artist. Fortunately, I had the naiveté and the courage to follow a call I truly did not comprehend.
Art-making is my means of exploring, questioning and reinterpreting the way that we perceive our world and is a reflection of my ongoing personal search for meaning and understanding. I rely on beauty, trust and faith in the art of seeing.
My artworks have been internationally exhibited and published, and are in the collections of such fine institutions as the Victorian and Albert Museum in London, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the George Eastman House, the Santa Barbara Museum, the Musee de Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium and the Lianzhou Museum in Lianzhou, China. I have an MFA from Stanford University and have taught courses and workshops in both the United States and Europe. I am a dual U.S. / Italian citizen and currently live between Pittsburgh, PA and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Statement: See the About page to learn more about my personal experiences and the story of the making of At My Window.
Afterword:
In the artist statement for my first serious art project, The Center of the Universe, I wrote: “I can remember the hours spent simply looking. When I was a child, all things were worthy of inspection.” Recapturing that way of being and seeing was not only the aim of that project, but has also been an integral element of nearly all of my subsequent art works. At My Window, essentially a visual record of what transpired before me as I sat simply looking, could be thought of as nothing more than a variation on this theme.
When facing the news of my frightening diagnosis, with the flood of memories of that old man sitting at his window, I was not, however, thinking of art projects. My intense compulsion to mimic that old man (to become that old man?) by sitting at my own window was an act of despair. In that moment it felt like I was giving in to my fears and giving up. Setting up my camera beside me was an afterthought.
Little did I suspect that instead of sinking farther down into a sense of helplessness, the act of simply sitting and looking would, over time, help me find a place of mental, emotional and spiritual peace. Little did I suspect that I would be presenting these videos to you here and now.
I do find it interesting that the way of seeing and being that I had for years tried to cultivate in my art works would later provide a form of salvation. Perhaps, that was my unconscious motivation all along.