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Tom of Finland Foundation Awards 2022
Tom of Finland Foundation has presented awards since 2000 to stellar individuals who have demonstrated their vast commitment to our community.
These annual awards are a blend of our history and our future.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
FOR ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND IMMEASURABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY
Peter Fiske
Peter Fiske has been a Leatherman and community activist since the 1960s. He came out in Leather on 31st March 1964 at the Empire Theater on 42nd Street in New York. He moved to San Francisco in March 1966. He was a member of the Koala’s Motorcycle Club from 1967 to 1969 and in 1969 moved briefly back to New York for seven months where he was a regular at the Stonewall Inn and present during three police raids there. “Stonewall made me a lifelong activist,” says Peter. He lived in San Francisco for forty-three years until 2009 when he moved to Palm Springs where he now resides.
He was active in protests in the ’70s in San Francisco including against Pacific Bell demanding the hiring of GLBT people as operators and also at the deaths of George Moscone and Harvey Milk on the day of Dan White’s conviction in 1979 and later at City Hall. In 1980 he joined the newly formed The 15 Association of San Francisco as its first new member after the six founders. He is the 1st Chairman Emeritus of the The 15 Association and a member for forty-two years.
His mentors were Felix Jones, Alan Selby and Tom of Finland. His partner was International Mr. Leather 1983 Colt Thomas who died in 1992. In the 1980s he was with ACT UP at many demonstrations including a Democratic Convention and the 1990 San Francisco Aids Convention, where led by Cleve Jones, he helped hijack a cable car. In 2009 he was arrested on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco for sitting down with 240 other activists and blocking the street to protest Proposition 8. He has been a valuable ally in the struggle for Trans acceptance in the Leather/Fetish/Kink scene from 2006 to the present.
He received the Heritage of Pride Award for his leadership of the Aids Emergency Fund and for service of over fifteen years to the San Francisco community from San Francisco Pride in 2005. He was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame in 2017 and in 2019 was honored with the Leather Leadership Award at the Creating Change Conference in Detroit. He is the coauthor, with Thomas Peterson, of two books My Leather Life: Early Years (2019) and My Leather Life: Later Years (2022). He believes there is an equal place for all at the Leather community table. At seventy-seven, he is still active and engaged in the Leather and Fetish community. He is a Lifetime Member of Tom of Finland Foundation, a member of The 15 Association, Avatar Club, California B & B Desert Division, and The Delta Brotherhood.
Peter Fiske has been a Leatherman for the last 58 years. He is an inductee into the Leather Hall of Fame (2017). He has been an activist, a BDSM player and now author of two hit books. He joined the 15 Association in May of 1980, just three months after the club’s founding. The 15 Association is to be inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame in Los Angeles this Thanksgiving weekend (2022). Peter’s partner, Coulter Thomas, was International Mr. Leather 1983 and passed away in 1992. Peter firmly believes there is an equal place for all at the Leather/Kink table. In 2018 Peter received the Leather Leadership Award at the Creating Change conference and is a two-time Pantheon Awardee. He lives in Palm Springs.
“I am very grateful for the Lifetime Achievement Award given to me and for the opportunity to read from my new book. The Award and the reading, and being with all of you and all the supporters of Tom’s legacy, are why I am so glad to attend and to donate copies of My Leather Life: Later Years to the TOM House library.”
ARTIST HALL OF FAME AWARD
FOR ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND IMMEASURABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY
Daniel Lismore
Daniel Lismore is a London and Coventry based artist; a “living sculpture” who creates elaborate, extravagant, three-dimensional tableaux of figurative sculptures crafted like tapestries; each artwork is created from fragments of items previously worn by the artist, meshing history and futurism whilst reflecting the world in which he exists.
Lismore has been a prominent fixture on the London fashion and art circuits and an activist for human rights and the environment for twenty years. His evolution as a living sculpture was fuelled by a childhood growing up in his father’s antique auction house where historic regalia; priceless exquisitely, hand-made treasures, artworks, taxidermy, weaponry and suits-of-armour were assembled alongside collectible Star War figures and Star Trek memorabilia.
Although he started his career as an artist from the perspective of the outsider, working as a photographer within a year he had moved in front of the lens as a model, later emerging as a creative consultant for Mert and Marcus, Steven Klein, Martin Parr, David LaChapelle and Ellen von Unwerth.
Lismore has been named by Vogue as “England’s Most Eccentric Dresser”. In 2017 he was selected in the top hundred of the Out 100 List. In 2018 and 2020 he was named in the top hundred, Guardian’s Pride Power List. In 2016, Daniel Lismore became the Circuit ambassador for the Tate Museums. It was here that Lismore hosted his first two exhibitions in Tate Modern 2012 and Tate Britain 2013 featuring self portraits.
Daniel Lismore’s first book, Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken, published by Rizzoli in 2016, documented the thirty-two figurative sculptures of Lismore which comprised his first USA museum exhibition. The exhibition was co-curated by The Savannah College of Art and Design and was later displayed at Miami Art Basel.
In May 2017 Lismore exhibited at the Venice Biennale. In June 2018, Lismore curated a month-long show of his work at Harpa Hall in Iceland as the highlight of the Reykjavik Arts Festival. The exhibition subsequently toured Europe, opening at the Pan Museum in Naples and Stary Brower Gallery in Poznań, Poland. The exhibition was attended by over 100,000 visitors.
Since 2018, Lismore has been a Global Ambassador for Graduate Fashion Week, which reflects the six years he spent as creative director of luxury women’s wear brand Sorapol, dressing Maria Cary, Cara Delevingne and Nicky Minaj. Lismore has long been an active campaigner for the recycling of clothes and in 2015 became the face of the H&M Close the Loop campaign to encourage the practice of recycling clothes.
Daniel Lismore is an ambassador of the climate change charity Cool Earth and has worked closely with Vivienne Westwood on her Climate Revolution projects.
He has appeared in numerous Bulgari Campaigns and featured in TV shows, including Sky Arts Portrait of The Year, Marina Abramovic Takes Over TV, and Statues Redressed. In 2015 he made a cameo appearance in the movie Absolutely Fabulous.
In April 2019 Lismore gave a TED Talk at the main TED conference in Vancouver, titled “My Life as a Work of Art” in which he spoke about his life as a living sculpture.
In September 2019, Lismore opened Naomi Campbell’s Fashion for Relief runway show at the British Museum revealing one of the first costumes he designed for the English National Opera (in collaboration with Swarovski) for Harrison Birtwistle’s iconic opera, The Mask of Orpheus which was staged at the London Coliseum.
Since the Covid 19 pandemic, Lismore has been residing between Coventry and London working on LGBTQ+ activism and new artworks. His show Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken opened in 2022 in Coventry City UK Capital of Culture at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.
“I am so honoured to be acknowledged by such a wonderful, inspiring community whom I love and adore. Thank you so much Durk, cofounder of Tom of Finland Foundation, for this award. I am very grateful! As an artist I do my best for the LGBTQIA+ community, non stop, you are all one of the priorities in life, even though sometimes I never speak much of it online and sometimes the art speaks for itself. I’ve always been made to feel like a bit of an outcast by most of the organisations in our communities because nobody has known where to place me (which I don’t mind) and today I really felt appreciated, loved and received, which means the world to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I first found some of Tom’s work when I was a teen and his work really was part of growing up and learning about being Queer.”
CULTURAL ICON AWARD
FOR ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND IMMEASURABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY
Orville Peck
A self-styled “outlaw cowboy,” Orville Peck is known as an enigmatic performer whose deep-baritone voice and classic country sound fuses elements of goth, shoegaze, and indie rock without letting the subtle ironies of the songs overpower the performances.
After bursting onto the scene with 2019’s well-received debut Pony, Peck recorded a cover of the smash hit “Born This Way” at the request of Lady Gaga in honor of her album’s 10th Anniversary. Later that year, Peck recorded covers of the Johnny and June Carter Cash classic “Jackson” and remixed the vintage k.d. lang number “Miss Chatelaine” for her Makeover collection. His latest full-length Bronco further transcends genres and styles to prove Peck is one of the most exciting artists working today.
Orville Peck deserves to shine for many reasons, his music videos are celebrations of LGBTQ pride. Standing out loud and proud has become more important to him than ever, he has an open heart and open mind. We know his work will help change the cycle of racism and homophobia.
