Daniel Joseph Watkins

Daniel Joseph Watkins is an American film director, producer, writer and curator. He is best known for directing the documentary film on journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He first became interested in art and activism when he was studying at Baker University in Kansas. He wrote Thomas W. Benton: Artist/Activist in 2012 and Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign For Sheriff in 2015. He is the director of the Gonzo Gallery in Aspen, Colorado.
==Career==
After a chance encounter with the widow of the artist and activist Thomas W. Benton in Woody Creek, Colorado in 2008, Watkins began documenting and archiving Benton's work which eventually led to the publication of Watkin's first book Thomas W. Benton: Artist/Activist. It won the Colorado Book Award for Best Pictorial Book in 2012. 
Benton was long-time friends with Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and while Watkins was writing his book on Benton he began researching Thompson's life. Watkins discovered material from Thompson's 1970 campaign for Sheriff in Pitkin County, Colorado that had never been published. Thompson's first article ever written for Rolling Stone, Freak Power in the Rockies, was on his campaign for Sheriff and Thompson wrote extensively about police reform, marijuana and environmental issues during his campaign. Watkins used this material to write his 2015 book Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign For Sheriff.
In 2017, the brother of the filmmaker Robert E. Fulton III, found a reel of footage marked Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff in his barn in Aspen, Colorado. He gave it to Watkins to watch and after realizing it was never before seen footage of Thompson's 1970 Freak Power Campaign, Watkins began looking for more footage of Thompson. He found forty reels and seven hours of audio material which Watkins used to make the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot Or the Bomb which premiered digitally in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The film was co-directed by Watkins and Ajax Phillips and produced by Mimi Polk-Gitlin, Angus Wall, Watkins and Ajax Phillips.
==Awards and recognition==
* 2012, Colorado Book Award: Pictorial
* 2017, The Salonniere- America’s 100 Best Party Hosts
* 2021, Kentucky Colonel
==Filmography==
* 2020: Freak Power: The Ballot Or The Bomb
==Exhibitions==
Watkins is the director and curator of The Gonzo Gallery which exhibits historic and contemporary art as well as hosting Liberty Salon discussions on current events and political topics. Watkins has curated over fifty shows including work from Hunter S. Thompson -, Ralph Steadman - Ralph Steadman, William S. Burroughs. Watkins has also organized exhibitions at the Lawrence Arts Center - Lawrence Arts Center, The Aspen Historical Society, The Frazier Museum in Louisville, Kentucky as well as the Poster House in New York. In 2019, Watkins curated a show of photographs by Sergey Ponomarev and Veronique de Viguere to benefit the non-profit Afghanistan Libre’s support of women’s education efforts - Chékéba_Hachemi.
Category:1983 births
Category:American film directors
Category:American producers
Category:American writers
Category:American curators