Education:
Colvin earned a B.F.A. in photography/design at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1982, and studied graduate photography/film at UT Austin from 1982-1988 (with a short detour to VCU in 1983-1984). In a daring political performance piece, Colvin protested radical Reagan/Bush budget cuts to the UT Art Dept. by dropping out, only one class away from his masters degree. While in Texas, Colvin studied with world-class researchers like film scholar Louis Black (founder of SXSW), cine-ethnographer Steven Feld (collaborator with Mickey Hart), and renowned Mayan art expert Linda Schele (who broke the Mayan code). Colvin's friends and peers in the Austin arts community included directors Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, cameramen Bill and Lee Daniel, the notorious Butthole Surfers, the Seemen, and world-renowned folk singer Daniel Johnston (also from WV). Colvin's 1980s Mothman Photo Series gained him sufficient acclaim to allow brief collaborations with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Lee Friedlander, and Keith Haring. Colvin is a founding member of the Austin Film Society. In the late 1970s, Colvin studied at the highly-touted journalism program at Marshall University, and was a news announcer on WFMU-FM. While at Marshall, he tutored with media icons Ralph Turner (who originally reported on Mothman) and Matt Lauer of The Today Show.

Biography:
Andy Colvin was born in Charleston, WV, in 1959. In 1966, Andy & his family & friends started having encounters with the supernatural birdman popularly known as "Mothman." Colvin found he could draw, paint, and take photographs after these encounters. He was recognized as an artistic prodigy at his elementary school, where his drawings have hung for several decades. After his father died in 1972, Colvin helped support himself by doing portraits at local fairs and illustrations for local businesses. He became known for working in semi-trance, capturing the essence of his subjects in unforgiving media such as India ink, gauche, and watercolor. Word traveled fast about a teenage "Mothman" artist who could draw with either hand, and who rarely looked at the paper.

Andy Colvin is now a documentary photographer and filmmaker who has been interviewing witnesses to paranormal events for over two decades. Prior to making documentaries, Colvin worked on commercial films, in art museums, and in photographic studios. He has shot documentaries on several subjects, including the Seattle WTO protests, The McVeigh execution, and Generation-X "SLACKERS" from TX.

Artist Statement:
This body of work reflects emotional states and synchronous coincidences I have perceived in connection with the notorious Mothman and one of his major prophecies: the 9/11 tragedy. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, I remembered that 34 years prior, my best friend at school had predicted that such an event would occur in the year 2001. He had also said that it would be the start of “World War III.” My friend stated that his knowledge had come from his personal visits with “space aliens” and a flying “birdman” that was being seen in the area. One night while I was staying over at his house, he woke up screaming that the aliens and the birdman had come to visit us while we were asleep. I was naturally incredulous, and we soon had a falling out. In the media, the birdman was dubbed “Mothman.” The story of the Mothman sightings later became the focus of a best-selling book and motion picture called The Mothman Prophecies.

Central to the Mothman tale is that there appears to be a shape-shifting creature that can communicate with people either telepathically, or through dreams and visions. The Mothman is an enigmatic subject that has confounded mainstream “cryptozoologists” and UFO researchers for decades, as it incorporates things that go far beyond typical creature sightings or UFO encounters. According to author John Keel, who popularized the story, the Mothman was communicating with people about events completely unrelated to UFOs. The Mothman’s prophetic messages had to do with things like political assassinations, energy blackouts, and industrial sabotage. Keel noticed an odd, recurring mix of seemingly unrelated phenomena, such as highly-gifted children, missing teenagers, lightning-strike victims, “intelligent” balls of light, Bigfoots with glowing eyes, occult/masonic activity, fake military officers, fake clergy, fake photographers, fake spacemen, and fake NASA/Smithsonian vans, as well as entirely real stalkers, serial killer activity, cattle and human mutilations, and threatening operatives like the Men In Black. Underneath one finds links to the military-industrial complex, to international banking, terrorism, narcotics, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, atomic energy, biowarfare, and religious organizations. Authors such as Peter Levenda and Peter Moon (who reported on Montauk) seem to think that the clues, correspondences, and synchronicities prevalent around Mothman point damningly to the occult wings of fascism and neo-Nazism, as evidenced by the coverups surrounding Charles Manson and Sara Jane Moore. At the same time he investigated Mothman, John Keel investigated events on Long Island which we now see overlap into the Montauk saga and its incredible premise: that America was once settled by Moors, and that there is a conspiracy to hide the knowledge of earth energies mastered by the Moors.

Birdmen such as the Mothman are present in the lore of almost all cultures on earth, including the ancient Sumerians, Greeks, Hebrews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Native Americans. The Greek letter Psi is based on the Phoenix, a derivation of this winged being. There are obvious connections between ancient birdmen and symbols like the caduceus (now the logo of the American Medical Association), the chakra system (on which Eastern medicine is based), and the “eagle and ribbon” imagery so prevalent in various government offices. Some connections, like The Great Stone Owl of Moloch worshipped annually by elite Republican business leaders at Bohemian Grove, CA, are less obvious--yet still quite intriguing. The Old and New Testaments connect flying beings with Ezekiel’s Wheel and the messianic Christ, whose symbolic cross, or “tree,” is eerily similar to the symbologies of the Thunderbird and the Garuda, the fearsome, crime-fighting protector deity of Asia. There also seems to be some sort of code embedded within the Mothman encounters, similar to the daVinci Code. This code might reflect the ancient Hindu belief that the Garuda’s role is to systematically root out those who commit heinous crimes. In this sense, the Mothman phenomenon and its attendant “prophecies” may be a naturally-occurring social mechanism for tracking political crimes, harmful military and/or governmental operations, and predatory business behaviors--especially behaviors that harm the young and innocent. The concept of a “messianic protector” or “crime-fighting deity” is an old one. Researchers have counted several messiahs prior to Christ. Each one seems to have utilized “prophecies” given to ordinary humans.

Once the 9/11 tragedy occurred and I realized that my friend had been correct in his prediction, I began to look differently at everything that had transpired in my youth. The events started to have a real context. I began reading everything I could find on related subjects. I went back to the Ohio and Kanawha Valleys several times, and interviewed people from my childhood. I made a Mothman video series, and began writing books and doing interviews on the subject. As I traveled, I shot most of the photographs for this series. I searched for the places where people had seen the creature, and familiarized myself with the “energy” of these places. I looked for that energy in other places. Along the way the phenomenon seemed to interact with me, placing obvious synchronicities in my path, as a kind of validation that I was going in the right direction. During the course of the investigation, I began to wonder if I had subconsciously been following a life-course influenced by my original 1967 interactions with the phenomenon. I also began to suspect that my recent photos may contain pieces of “Mothman Code.”

I usually shoot several versions of any given image, using a half-dozen cameras of varying formats. The choice of which image to use usually comes down to an indescribable quality, a subconscious cue that tells me “this is the one.” This intuitive process seems to allow more precognitive qualities to come through. Many of my images from decades ago are just now beginning to make sense. Some of these older images are included in this book. I hope you find them beneficial in understanding the awesome Mothman mystery. In keeping with the traditional documentary style I began practicing 25 years ago, I have not manipulated these images in any way, other than slight color correction, cropping, and formatting for publication.

Andy Colvin
Sept. 11, 2006

Currently:
In conjunction with the Cincinnati Gallery of Conceptual Art, Andy has just published a book of Mothman-related photographs called "The Mothman's Photographer: The Work of an Artist Touched by the Prophecies of the Infamous Mothman." Andy also is publishing a trilogy of books based on his 32-hr. documentary series, "The Mothman's Photographer: Meetings With Remarkable Witnesses Touched by the Mothman Phenomenon." Colvin's work has been seen in almost all 50 states, and in several foreign countries. He has been interviewed on radio and television, and continues to freelance as a photojournalist, radio host, and actor. His clients have included The Stranger Magazine, D'Art Quarterly, Blitz Lisbon, The Austin Chronicle, UPS, Pepsi, Industrial Rubber, R.J. Reynolds, DIEM & WING, Nieman Marcus, and Dupont.

Andy currently resides in the Pacific NW with his wife and son.

For the latest brain-tweaking info harvest, visit Andy's Washington L.O.W.F.I. web site.
And for the absolute FULL EFFECT, don't forget to grab the the soundtrack CD.