The Mothman's Photographer

Spurred by the realization that the 9/11 attacks were accurately predicted - in 1967 - by a friend who was seeing Mothman, Seattle artist Andy Colvin began documenting his experiences growing up in WV. The resulting video featured interviews with dozens of paranormal witnesses and experts, including celebrated ufologist John Keel, who originally investigated the sightings in Colvin's neighborhood. Colvin himself began a long series of interviews on radio and TV shows. In addition to...
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Spurred by the realization that the 9/11 attacks were accurately predicted - in 1967 - by a friend who was seeing Mothman, Seattle artist Andy Colvin began documenting his experiences growing up in WV. The resulting video featured interviews with dozens of paranormal witnesses and experts, including celebrated ufologist John Keel, who originally investigated the sightings in Colvin's neighborhood. Colvin himself began a long series of interviews on radio and TV shows. In addition to doing hundreds of hours of interviews, Colvin generated over 3000 pages of writing, and several thousand photographs, devoted to exploring the mysteries of the Mothman phenomenon. This photo book, "The Mothman's Photographer I," features 300 of Colvin's eerie, symbolic images. There are brief descriptions of all photos, an artist's statement, and a forward by Dave Scott, curator for the Cincinnati Gallery of Conceptual Art. Colvin's images dramatically illustrate his theory that birdmen such as Mothman, Garuda, and Thunderbird are actually archetypal, crime-fighting "superheroes" from the collective unconscious. The job of these avatars is to send dreams, visions, and psychic messages to ordinary humans, thus stimulating insight, creativity, and intellectual growth. Regardless of the source, Colvin's talent as an artist shines through in his drawings and photographs. Despite his spare, unblinking approach, his work is funny and entertaining. Somehow it achieves a poetic magic. It may even represent a breakthrough in how we perceive the mysterious. By taking 25 years and devoting it to nothing but the audiovisual documentation of his own life, Colvin has produced a body of work that transcends the mundane and defies categorization.