Andrew Colvin
AUTHOR

Andrew Colvin

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Andy Colvin is an eclectic artist, photographer, filmmaker, publisher, musician, and NYT/Amazon bestselling author, who has been called "one of America's great, pain-in-the-butt original thinkers." Colvin has written or co-written over 100 books, and was one of the founders of the "xerox" or "street art" movement now popular in galleries worldwide. Colvin was also one of the first "spoken word" artists, and because he was the first showman to preach the "Slack" gospel of The Church of the Subgenius, Colvin is known as one of the first "Slackers." As a producer, Colvin is credited with discovering the band, Nirvana, by booking their first show on his first day of work in Seattle. He also stage-managed their first live performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and produced a video of this historic event (on YouTube). Colvin also worked in varying capacities with artists such as Blondie, Heart, Chris Cornell, Alice in Chains, Bootsy Collins, Deee-Lite, Laurie Anderson, Daniel Johnston, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, the Butthole Surfers, the Doors, and the Cocteau Twins. As a paranormal researcher, Colvin is known for popularizing the mysterious "Mothman" creature, the "11:11 Awakening Code," the legend of Indrid Cold, the exploits of "Venusian" commander, Valiant Thor, and the practice of "synchro-conspiracy" or "synchromysticism." Colvin's personal story was used as a basis for the "underground alien base" arc in "The X-Files," and details of his life can be found in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Twin Peaks," and "Stranger Things." Colvin's controversial theories have made him a popular speaker on venues like Coast to Coast AM, Destination America, The History Channel, The Travel Channel, SyFy, NPR, RAI, BBC, and PBS, and have gained him a dedicated "cult" following. He appeared on many early paranormal podcasts and co-hosted classic conspiracy shows like "The Grassy Knoll" and "The Stench of Truth," often focusing on how the media blends stories to subconsciously "manufacture consent" in the public mind. Between 2013 and 2018, Colvin revamped America's longest running "fringe" publishing house, Saucerian Press, founded in 1950 by Gray Barker. "Jimmy Jamison," the young boy depicted in Barker's popular 1970 book, "The Silver Bridge," was based on Colvin. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, New York writer John A. Keel, Colvin has focused on "Fortean" mysteries such as UFOs, creature entities, magic, and the psychology of the human mind. His approach is unique in that it blends a background of documented paranormal experience with years of academic study in marketing, advertising, philosophy, psychology, suppressed history, sociology, and anthropology. His background in art, design, and symbology has, at times, allowed him to connect dots that previously escaped attention. Colvin is considered by many to be the leading authority on "Mothman," due to his early experiences with the phenomenon and his intensive audiovisual documentation of symbols and synchronicities. Colvin's early "illumination" experiences were almost identical to those of science-fiction authors Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson, except that they occurred to Colvin when he was 7 years old, living on a dirt road in Appalachia. Following these experiences, Colvin could suddenly draw, sing, and take pictures, and seemed to have a photographic memory. He was recognized as a prodigy, and was eventually offered a scholarship to Harvard University. He and several other "Mothman genius kids" were studied at their grade school by a team from Yale, working on behalf of NASA and the DoD. Colvin's theory - derived from his involvement with the Seattle Buddhist temple depicted in "The Little Buddha" - is that the Mothman (or Garuda, a Buddhist deity) seemed to protect the "genius kids," helping them to stabilize creative advances. If these kids were actually reincarnated Tibetan monks, this would explain the appearance of the notorious "Oriental" Men in Black: bounty hunters attempting to enforce China's official "no reincarnation" policy. While in college, Colvin broke ground in several then-new disciplines, such as video installation, performance art, and "interdimensional portal" photography. In the early 1980s, Colvin made a splash in the New York art world by taking on the persona of "Whiz," a practitioner of "collaborative art." This unique approach allowed Colvin to work with several notable artists. While attending graduate school at UT Austin, Colvin helped found UT's celebrated Transmedia Dept., as well as the Austin Film Society, now credited with bringing commercial filmmaking to Texas. In 1985, Colvin used his tuition grant money to purchase the only 8mm video camcorder then available, becoming the first filmmaker in Austin to shoot in the new format. His ensuing documentation of the lives of local "slackers" influenced the seminal cult film that defined Generation X, "Slacker." Colvin's band, "Ed Hall," appeared in the film and on the soundtrack, and the character of the "obsessed photographer" was based on him. Colvin's experiences with astral projection were also depicted in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life." Colvin's own production, "Multislacker," premiered in 1987, making it arguably the world's first "reality" show. His series "The Mothman's Photographer," which debuted in 2002, was the very first paranormal reality show to be broadcast in the U.S. Following graduate school, Colvin worked on Hollywood films such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre II," toured with his experimental troupe, "The Interdimensional Vortex League" (once named America's "most underground band"), and began making ethnographic documentaries about unusual tribes, subcultures, and personalities. Colvin's work has been seen or heard in all 50 states, and in several foreign countries. His writing has appeared in various journals, including Oprah Magazine, Buzzfeed, The Stranger, The Seattle Weekly, Forbes, Paranoia, Vogue, and The Austin Chronicle. Crediting his belief in the power of synchronicity, Colvin was able to work or study with some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th Century, including Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, Robert Anton Wilson, Steven Feld, Bruce Bickford, Ron English, Frank Kozik, Lee Krasner, Nam June Paik, Robert Frank, Vito Acconci, Crispin Glover, and Banksy.
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