Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years

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Chuck Renslow, Kris Studios, International Mr. Leather, LA&M Dom first encountered Chuck Renslow on Oak Street beach in Chicago in 1950. Instantly drawn to each other, Dom moved in with Chuck and in 1954. They forged the physique photography business, Kris Studios, which they ran until 1969. Kris’ photographic studio was originally set up in the back area of the Triumph Gym, also a Renslow-Orejudos collaboration, and many of the gym’s patrons found their way into the pages of Kris, the studio’s physique magazine. It was within the pages of Kris that Etienne launched his artistic career, earning a living through mail order photo prints of his drawings and art series’. Jack Fritscher experienced the gym and the scene it begat first hand early-on. In 1969, he was first introduced to Dom and later ‘married’ into the Renslow clan when he met and partnered with Gold Coast bartender David Sparrow. He took many of his “Chicago values” with him when they moved to San Francisco in 1969, roots which played an important role in his association with Drummer and American leather heritage. Dom and Jack became lifelong friends. By the time they closed Kris Studios, Chuck and Dom had already become successful business managers and owners of a series of gay men’s gathering places in Chicago, from the Triumph Gym to the Hi-Lo Bar, to the various reincarnations of the Gold Coast bar (beginning in 1958), to Man’s Country bathhouse. Together, they also founded International Mr. Leather in 1979, for which Dom produced much of the contest’s promotional art and its logo, served many years as Head Judge, along with judging roles at other leather contests across the U.S. Although most know Dom through his visual art and involvement in the Chicago leather community of the 50s to the 80s, he was a passionate and talented dancer from early in life. Dom served with the Ellis-DuBoulay School, Illinois Ballet Company, New Orleans Ballet Company, Southeast Regional Ballet Association and others as a student, dancer, teacher, choreographer, composer, mentor, and judge. Orejudos danced with the Illinois Ballet from 1958, at the age of sixteen, until 1973, eventually becoming resident choreographer, principal dancer, and associate director of the company. The Dom Orejudos Dance Papers at the Newberry Library in Chicago hold correspondence, clippings, photographs, programs, sketches, and audiovisual material relating to Orejudos' dance career and to the Illinois Ballet. Fritscher commented on the relation between Dom’s dance sensibilities and his visual art, noting, “His talent for dramatic movement and story arcs, developed on stage in his choreography, informed his cartoon-strip narratives.” The Dom Orejudos Collection at the LA&M holds keys to this more personal side of Dom, ranging from photograph albums, leather clothing and vest, personal letters and business correspondence, souvenirs, buttons, an oral history recorded in 1984, and of course, his amazing oeuvre of art. 38
Sadly, Dom passed away of AIDS in 1991. Chuck Renslow, his partner of forty years by that point, had been selling off some of Dom’s work to pay for experimental medical innovations to help treat Dom’s advanced AIDS diagnosis. Upon his passing, Chuck inherited Dom’s artwork and knew he couldn’t sell it off, nor trust it to a foundation or gallery. gay bars became, in essence, the first gay art galleries. Dom was a true innovator in art, photography and dance. More than anything else though, Dom was a passionate family man, so evidenced by his albums, interviews and oral histories, all housed at the LA&M. He was devoted to his biological family, his mother and brother, as well as to his Leather Family and all Leatherfolk with whom he had made a connection through his art and life. Friend Tony DeBlase (creator of the Leather Pride Flag, early Chicago Hellfire Club member, and publisher of DungeonMaster newsletter and Drummer magazine) and academic/historian Dr. Gayle Rubin (founding member of Samois, The Outcasts, International Ms. Leather) suggested that Chuck start a museum and use a section of it to display and preserve Dom’s art. Together, Renslow, DeBlase, Rubin, and other early LA&M Board members set the wheels in motion and the Leather Archives & Museum was formally launched at the 1992 International Mr. Leather contest. One large part of the LA&M’s early mission was to forever preserve the artwork, artifacts and legacy of Etienne, and to collect the materials of other leather artists and trailblazers as well. Dom Orejudos served as one of the major motivating forces for the creation of this very institution, which will continue to grow and flourish with the contributions and support of like-minded leatherfolk, kinksters, researchers, academics, and historians for generations to come. Dwight Skeates LA&M Volunteer August 2016 Dom helped usher the celebration of gay life into the mainstream. He and his partner Chuck Renslow were among the first to push the envelope of gay erotic photography beyond its cloaked public guise of physique posing and into the realm of leather, BDSM, kink, and fetish. He was one of the first to release to the public unabashedly ‘gay’ art and with nudity at that. He was one of the first to bring art to the burgeoning Leather Mural Movement and thanks in large part to him, 39
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Page 8 and 9: Copyright © 2016 by the Leather Ar
Page 10 and 11: CONTENTS Excerpt from “Report fro
Page 12 and 13: PREFACE O ur collective, personal,
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Page 40 and 41: FROM THE LA&M COLLECTIONS: A PHOTO
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Page 62 and 63: THE FUTURE The future of the LA&M i
Page 64 and 65: COLLECTIONS HIGHLIGHT: SAILOR SID P
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Page 68 and 69: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: GENERAL RESEAR
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Page 78 and 79: Doc Duhon Dr. Robert Wall Eric Kuge
Page 80 and 81: 25 Years of Board of Directors *Chu
Page 82 and 83: 25 YEARS OF STAFF Joseph Bean Execu
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LOCATED IN CHICAGO… SERVING THE W
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Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years

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