Alton Kelley was born in Houlton, Maine on June 17th, 1940. His family moved to Connecticut when Alton was six, and he grew up in the towns of Stratford and Bridgeport.
Kelley became a 'car-freak' early in his life; he painted cars and motorcycles while in high school, and showed a keen instinct for mechanics and engineering in general. This led him to take courses in industrial design at Philadelphia Museum College of Art, and at the Art Students League in New York. Academic life did not suit Kelley, and he returned to Stratford and took a job as an aircraft mechanic with Sikorsky, testing engines and transmissions. After two and a half years, he left Sikorsky, and made the trip West.
He looked in on the beat scene in San Francisco, and then settled in Los Angeles for about two years, doing welding and general auto work in nearby towns, and racing motorcycles in his spare time. After trips to Connecticut and Mexico, he returned to San Francisco in 1965 and became a founder-member of the 'Family Dog', a group of friends who presented large-scale rock and roll dances in the San Francisco area. The production of posters advertising the dances became his special responsibility.
After 1968, he lived for brief spells in Oregon, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, before returning to the San Francisco Bay area where he has remained since 1971.
