Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years (1991-2016) [digital]

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.
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. Friend Tony DeBlase (creator of
the Leather Pride Flag, early Chicago
Hellfire Club member, and publisher of
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