Janice Baker Photographs

FULL FINDING AID AND LIST OF MATERIALS

Read the finding aid for the Janice Baker Photographs processed between 2020-2024.

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BIOGRAPHY

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.