Janice Baker Photographs
Scope and Contents
The bulk of the Janice Baker Photography Collection comprises Baker’s photography including negatives, transparencies, contact sheets, and prints captured in the 1980s. The subjects of her photographs include portraits of friends and family, lesbian-centric events, nature scenes, and more. Her event photography documents gatherings such as Gay Pride, birthday parties, the Ovular women’s photography workshop, and West Coast Women's Music Festival. The collection also contains personal papers including Janice’s coursework and correspondence, and material she collected including political ephemera, organizational flyers, newspapers, and publications.
Dates
- Creation: 1982-1998
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on the collection. The collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights to the physical objects belong to the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or heir for permission to publish where the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives do not hold the copyright.
Biographical / Historical
Janice Baker (b. 1952) is a feminist lesbian artist born in Pasadena, California working in photography, painting, and mixed media. Janice worked as a nurse and organized with feminist lesbian activists throughout her life.
Janice grew up in a conservative household that practiced the Metaphysical Church of Science of Mind religion and attributes becoming an artist to her “unusual” religious upbringing. She graduated from nursing school at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in 1977 and divorced her abusive husband the same year. Six months later Janice was raped and she developed severe PTSD. Janice returned to CSULB where she was introduced to women’s studies, art classes, and her lesbian identity. In her own words, “women’s studies gave me a context to understand I was not alone.”
From 1979 until she left California in 1984, Janice was a prolific photographer, documenting the women’s movement in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Janice published work in the Blatant Image photography magazine and local women’s papers. She attended “Ovulars,” a week-long photography workshop for women, run by Ruth and Jean Mountaingrove on their lesbian communal land, Rootworks, in southern Oregon.
In 1984 Janice moved to WomanShare, a women’s land collective and feminist retreat outside of Grants Pass, Oregon with her friend Aggie Agapito. Photography from her time at WomanShare resides at University of Oregon, Special Collections.
After three years at WomanShare, Baker moved to Eugene, Oregon where she worked as a mental health nurse at Sacred Heart Hospital. She and her partner Ginger Newman participated in lesbian feminist organizing work in Eugene, including advocating against Measure 9, a 1992 Oregon ballot measure to prohibit anti-discrimination laws regarding sexual orientation. Baker attended Lane Community College where she took studio art classes and developed her practice as a mixed media artist. Baker and Newman eventually moved to Tieton, Washington where they settled and continued to create art and organize for LGBTQ rights.
Source:
“Oral History Interview with Ginger Newman and Janice Baker: Transcript, Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project,” Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project, University of Oregon, October 20, 2018,
Extent
1.17 Linear Feet (4 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Janice Baker is a feminist lesbian mixed media artist living and working in California, Oregon and Washington. The collection contains Baker’s photography, mostly from the early 1980s, capturing the women’s movement at public events and intimate gatherings.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Janice Baker donated the materials to the June L. Mazer Archives in 2014.
Processing Information
The majority of material did not appear to be in chronological order or otherwise have an obvious original order. The processing archivist arranged material according to media types: 35mm negatives (black and white and color); black and white medium and large format negatives; prints; slides, contact sheets, and print materials.
Within these media-types, items have been arranged in the original order in which they were donated. Correspondence has been organized chronologically (undated correspondences are at the back of the folder). Photographic elements are stored in their original sleeves unless the original sleeves were damaged or unsafe for long term storage. In these cases, items have been rehoused maintaining the original order and orientation of the elements.
The processing archivist transcribed information from original housing onto new housing. Some of the 35mm negatives were originally donated in a binder, which was rusting. These have been rehoused in their original order. Some of the photographic prints were originally organized by subject; this original order has been maintained and any related documentation has been kept with the photographs.
Genre / Form
Occupation
Topical
- Title
- Janice Baker Photographs
- Author
- Vera Tykulsker
- Date
- 2023
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives Repository