Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years

These drawings were accompanied by story
text, written by Dom himself, as well as
notable kink writers such as Jeff Kincaid. The
comic series gave Dom an opportunity to
introduce a high degree of dry humor. He put
his men into situations entirely implausible or
impossible in real life and often with
excruciating degrees of BDSM, but his
humor brought them down to earth and
made them accessible. His drawings were
perversely enjoyable, especially at a time
when the scourge of AIDS was making reallife
hedonism less and less possible. His Trip
to Leatherland series, with its array of fun
gadgets, is a prime example.
Perhaps most famously, Dom painted
original murals for the Gold Coast (starting in
1960 at the 1130 North Clark Street location,
Man’s Country, Zolar’s, Mineshaft, and Club
Baths Kansas City. After the murals at the
original Gold Coast location (1130 North
Clark Street) had to be painted over when
the bar moved, Etienne used plywood and
masonite so they could be transported from
location to location; it was this incredible
foresight that allows the LA&M to preserve
and exhibit these incredible murals today.
Occasionally, he referenced friends and
lovers in his works. For example, in the
Garage series, he pays tribute to his friend
Durk Dehner, Tom of Finland Foundation
Chair and inaugural IML contestant. As
another example of the importance of Dom’s
chosen family as expressed in his art, the
final panel of his Subway Savages series
shows newspapers which, on close reading,
give a nod to partners Renslow and Bob
Yuhnke, amongst others.
While a large number of Dom’s original
works were destroyed in a studio flood, the
LA&M has amassed much of Dom’s early
oeuvre in the Periodicals in the Rose Library,
the Original Art and Posters collections in the
archive, and within the Dom Orejudos
Collections, the Chuck Renslow Collection
and the Bob Yuhnke Collection on Dom
Orejudos.
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