#bootblacking

Some of my favourite pics of me bootblacking at local leather events over the past year 🖤❤️‍🔥⛓️

Like, a flogging bottom might be praised for their ability to take pain and know their limits, or a rope bunny might be recognised as keeping themselves in good physical shape so they can hold complicated stress positions for longer than a novice, but even the most beginner of beginner bootblacks has learnt a little bit of materials science (Will this type of brush scratch this patent finish?), a little bit of basic chemistry (If these were last polished with a silicone wax, how do I remove that to start to bull them?), a little bit of leatherworking history (Is that natural fibre stitching on those surplused Warsaw Pact boots, will my polish rot it?) and spent time practising techniques on their own boots.

And it's one of the few kinks I can think of where the top is so immediately physically and emotionally vulnerable to the bottom in that way: I put my foot in the hands of a stranger bootblacking at a party, and I trust that they won't damage the boots I was gifted by my long-dead Master when I was 17, that they won't soak the stitching and start the rot of the boots I was wearing when I first fucked the love of my life, I trust that they'll carefully work around and treat the cuts and scuffs in the leather that I picked up wearing these same boots marshalling at a dozen prides and going toe-to-toe with strikebreakers and scabs on twenty years' worth of picket lines. The experienced bootblack can look at my soles and where my boots crease, and see that I have a weak hip, that I'm slightly bowlegged, that I don't drive and that I walk even in the weather where I'd rather not. And I trust that they'll see that worn-out, poor, slightly sad old man and still call me "sir".

It's probably just because the leather community as a whole tends to be a microcosm of society at large nowadays, but I see people posting flyers for events full of AI garbage; for bars, clubs, and larger events alike. Or they're posting some Tom of Finland looking AI generated sex homunculus with two left feet to get off to

I just find it especially hypocritical, since there's been some (absolutely valid!) conversations about not stealing other leatherworkers designs for belts and harnesses and such, and asking other leatherworkers for permission before even taking heavy inspiration from one of their designs, just for these same people to turn around and use AI to generate ads and images for them to post. They literally don't bat an eye when it comes to using the Stealing People's Art Machine as long as it's a medium they don't respect

My go-to resource for folks is anyone can shine! It’s a great, easily navigable site with skills broken down into beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Your second question is much deeper, and I love it.

Long post incoming