Leather Archives & Museum + Aay Preston-Myint
Images: (Left) A selection of objects pulled for a research visit with Aay Preston-Myint from the collection of the Leather Archives & Museum. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel. (Right) Aay Preston-Myint outside of the Leather Archives & Museum during a research visit. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel.
“We need these repositories of images, materials, and history for our inspiration, to find role models, to not make the same mistakes, to not think you’re alone, and even more importantly, to not think you’re original — you’re a part of a thread, a lineage.”
ARCHIVE:
Leather Archives & Museum
The Leather Archives & Museum was founded by Chuck Renslow and Tony DeBlase in 1991 as a community archives, library, and museum of leather, kink, fetish, and BDSM history and culture.
READ MORE: Interview with Mel Leverich of Leather Archives & Museum
ARTIST:
Aay Preston-Myint
Aay Preston-Myint is an artist, publisher, and educator working in the San Francisco Bay Area, after several years building a career and community in Chicago, IL. Their practice employs both visual and collaborative strategies to investigate memory and kinship, often within the specific context of queer community and history. In addition to their studio work, they are a founder of No Coast, an artist partnership that prints and distributes affordable contemporary artwork; is co-director of the Chicago Art Book Fair; and has served as a DJ and organizer for Chances Dances, a party supporting and showcasing the work of queer artists in Chicago. They are currently the Program Manager at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, and support Bay Area artist communities through membership in the collective studio Real Time and Space in Oakland, Southern Exposure’s Curatorial Council, and the Board of Directors at Small Press Traffic, a literary organization in San Francisco.
READ MORE: Interview with Aay Preston-Myint