Andy Colvin is a West Coast photographer, filmmaker, and writer who is considered by some to be his generation's Charles Fort, due to his obsessive documentation of coincidences, correspondences, and odd events. Following in the footsteps of John A. Keel, Colvin has blazed a 21st Century trail of investigation into mysteries that have plagued mankind for centuries, such as UFOs, creature entities, synchronicities, and the workings of the human mind.
In the 1960s, on a West Virginia backroad, Colvin and his family and friends had encounters with the entity popularly known as "Mothman." Following those encounters, Colvin found that he could draw, sing, and take pictures, and that he had a photographic memory. Colvin was recognized as a prodigy, and was eventually offered a scholarship to Harvard University.
While attending graduate school at the Univ. of Texas at Austin, Colvin helped found U.T.'s celebrated Transmedia Dept. as well as the Austin Film Society, an organization now credited with bringing commercial filmmaking to Texas. In 1985, Colvin used his tuition grant money to purchase the only 8mm camcorder then available, becoming the first filmmaker in Austin to shoot in the new format. His ensuing documentation of the lives of Austin "slackers" influenced the seminal cult hit that defined Generation X, "Slacker" - a project for which Colvin helped raise funds and equipment.
Following graduate school, Colvin worked on Hollywood films, toured with his experimental band, The Interdimensional Vortex League (once named America's "most underground band" by Europe's hip arts magazine, "Blitz"), and began making small, ethnographic documentaries about unusual tribes, subcultures, and personalities. His 25-year study of modern Texans, "Multislack," is due out in 2012.
Colvin's work has been seen or heard in all 50 states, and in several foreign countries. His writing has been featured in various magazines, including Paranoia, Inside the Grassy Knoll, The Stranger, and D'Art, the arts journal for the Church of the Subgenius. Colvin's unique career has been studded with various mind-blowing, synchronistic events, some of which allowed him to study with, or work with, some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th Century, including Nam June Paik, Lee Friedlander, Keith Haring, Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, Robert Anton Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Daniel Johnston, Vito Acconci, Bruce Bickford, and the Butthole Surfers.
Andy will join us Thursday, march 17th to talk about the Mothman and a whole lot more! Don't miss it!
And remember that you can always check out our Calendar of Guests to see who we have coming up in future shows!
Have a howling good day!
-Raven M.
