Leea C Mechling

Leea Mechling, one of the organization’s original founders, has served as the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture’s Executive Director and curator since 2004.

She arrived in Austin in 1974 to attend the University of Texas at Austin as a studio art major and worked at the Armadillo World Headquarters where she developed an understanding of how music, art, theater and conceptual performance are tied together. Leea was the founding producer of the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and is still associated with that event. After the Armadillo closed, she acted as the production assistant and office manager for Asleep at the Wheel until 1989. In 1991 she began a long career at the University of Texas, acting as the Executive Assistant to the Dean of Engineering until 1998 when she became the Executive Assistant to the Vice President for Legal Affairs. Retiring from UT in 2017, she now devotes her time to AusPop.

Since 2011 Leea has informally partnered with the University of Texas School of Information and Texas State University, San Marcos to provide internships for students pursuing their graduate degrees as professional librarians or cultural anthropologists.

Since 2004, Mechling has curated and overseen the installation of over 160 exhibitions featuring artists who have made major contributions to Austin’s unique culture. In addition to the focus on music art, she has been instrumental in the inclusion of live Austin music at the museum events. These exhibitions (which took place at both the original AusPop location on South Lamar location & the 2019-2020 location behind Threadgill’s restaurant on North Lamar, the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and at Austin’s annual South by Southwest Festival) have attracted thousands of people each year.