G.B. Jones Collection, bulk 1985-2022, bulk 1985-2000

Abstract:

The G.B. Jones Collection contains queer-feminist punk zines created and co-created by G.B. Jones, her personal zine collection, and ephemeral material tied to Jones' career as an artist.

Extent:

5.65 Linear Feet (9 Hollinger boxes, 1 oversize flat box, 1 oversize flat file drawer.)

Language:

English

Scope and content:

The G.B. Jones Collection exhibits her sweeping influence on the queer, feminist punk scenes of Toronto, greater Canada, the U.S. and abroad from the mid-1980s onward. As founding provocateur of the queercore movement, Jones' zines are primary sources on the movements' anti-assimilationist queer politics and its early contributors and co-conspirators – zines including her J.D.'s co-created with Bruce La Bruce and Double Bill featuring the likes of Jena Von Brücker, bandmate Caroline Azar, Johnny Noxema, and Rex, and others.

Series 1, "Zines by G.B. Jones," consists of zines G.B. Jones created and co-created.

Series 2, "Zines collected by G.B. Jones," comprises zines traded with or mailed to Jones over decades – zines that circulated within and trace the progression of overlapping, interconnected networks of queercore, riot grrrl, squatting, anarcho-punk, and independent music and film scenes. Jones' cultural impact is evidenced throughout, with zines featuring album and show reviews of her proto-riot grrrl band Fifth Column, interviews with her and her bandmates, her Tom Girls illustrations, and reviews of and promotion for Jones' films Yo-Yo Gang, Troublemakers, No Skin Off My Ass and Lollipop Generation. Thank-you liner notes, dedications, photo spreads, shout-outs and fanzine fanfare for Jones are also embedded into the personal zine collection she safeguarded over the years – mementos to the lasting queer community and snail mail friendships she nurtured through zines.

Biographical / historical:

"G.B. Jones is a provocateur…Her weapons: a soft lead pencil, an electric guitar, an 8mm movie camera, a photocopy machine. Her target: the woman-hating, Christian, non-tolerant, stupid mean world we live in. Her goal: Destruction." – Jeffery Kennedy

"When G.B. Jones enters me, laminates me, dominates me in the way that is so completely G.B. Jones, I am overwhelmed by her lusty ardour. There is no such thing as a victim, only volunteers, and I have volunteered to be G.B. Jones' victim." – Vaginal Creme Davis

"G.B. JONES, DEFINITELY THE SASSIEST GIRL IN AMERICA. OR CANADA." – Joanna Brown

G.B. Jones (1965-) is the Canadian illustrator, musician, filmmaker, zinester, and self-described dyke credited with instigating the queercore movement.

Queercore (formerly homocore) is an anti-assimilationist queer and punk subcultural movement hostile to the respectability politics and Reagan-era family values of the gay and lesbian mainstream. Queercore's discontents – filmmakers, zinesters, musicians, visual artists, and performers – noted their dual-rejection from normative LGBT+ community and the homophobic hardcore punk music scene, and bashied back with biting sarcasm and smut to forge their own instead. Born out of the mid-1980s Toronto queer and punk scene, queercore's seditious energy gained traction in North America and parts of Europe in the 1990s and 2000s through independent art and zine distribution networks, and amongst anarcha-feminist, punk, squatting and riot grrrl circles.

G.B. Jones moved to Toronto in 1980 from her hometown of Bowmanville, Ontario, and formed the proto-riot grrrl band Fifth Column with Caroline Azar and Beverly Breckenridge thereafter. With Jones as its drummer, guitarist and background vocalist, Fifth Column self-released To Sir With Hate (1985) andAll-Time Queen of the World (1989), and released 36C (1994) with Olympia-based independent label K-records. Jones put out her first zine, Hide, a multimedia punk fanzine and mixtape cassette, with Candy Pauker and bandmate Caroline Azar in 1981, featuring Fifth Column songs alongside other post-punk bands and experimental musicians.

Following her time as a disenchanted art student at the Ontario College of the Arts, Jones met punk and then-film student Bruce La Bruce at the all-night restaurant chain and local hangout Just Desserts, and the two collaborated on the queer punk zine J.D.'s for seven issues.J.D.'s – standing for Just Desserts, Juvenile Delinquents, J.D. Salinger, James Dean, Jack Daniels, etc. – is widely regarded as a foundational queercore zine and print catalyst of the movement. AfterJ.D.'s completed its run, Jones moved on to createDouble Bill with Caroline Azar, Jena von Brücker, Johnny Noxzema, and Rex, a scathing "hatezine" zine comparing wife-killer William Burroughs to beloved actor William Conrad.Bitch Nation, Jones' queer zine distro catalog, promoted zines, cassettes and records alongside those of her riot grrrl and queercore peers for ten issues through the 1990s.

Jones' has directed several "no budget" experimental Super-8 films, such as her first film The Troublemakers (1990),The Yo-Yo Gang (1992),The Lollipop Generation (2008), and music videos for the indie pop band Hidden Cameras includingThe Dark End of the Street (2017). Jones also starred in other experimental films through the late 1980s to the 2000s, including Fifth Column music videosLike This (1990) andDonna (1994), andBoy-Girl (1987) andNo Skin Off My Ass (1991) directed by Bruce la Bruce, the latter which she also contributed to as a scriptwriter and special effects artist.

Jones' may be best known for her Tom Girl illustrations – a longstanding series of erotic, delicately shaded pencil drawings subverting the fetishization of male authority figures in Tom of Finland's work, spotlighting lesbians taking back power. Tom Girls debuted in J.D.'s and went on to be shared widely in fanzines, Fifth Column promotional material, and art exhibitions internationally in New York City, Toronto, Vienna, Berlin, Munich and other cities across North America and Europe. Issues ofJ.D.'s as well as other zines and art book monographs featuring Jones' Tom Girls were seized and destroyed by Canadian Border Services in the early 1990s, as part of an anti-pornography censorship campaign.

G.B. Jones is currently represented by Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto.

Local call number:

SC10.21

Processing information:

Danielle St. Amour and G.B. Jones collaborated on an inventory list for the zine collection, complete with basic and contextual metadata on zines' provenance, their connections or references to Jones, subjects and formats. Claudia Acosta amended and finalized that inventory list, processed the collection and authored the finding aid. Barnard Archives student assistants Anique Edwards and Lina Infante assisted in physically processing the collecting by way of labeling and numbering folders and boxes.

Descriptive Rules Used: Finding aid adheres to that prescribed by Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Finding aid written in English.

Acquisition information:

Purchased from G.B. Jones, 2023.

Arrangement:

Series 1, "Zines by G.B. Jones," consists of zines G.B. Jones created and co-created.

Series 2, "Zines collected by G.B. Jones," consists of the remainder of Jones' personal zine collection. Jones' cultural impact on these scenes is evidenced through original subject headings linking together different zines' references to Jones' work, their proximity to Jones and to each other. The subject headings, which can overlap, are "Fifth Column," "Illustrations by G.B. Jones," "Interview with G.B. Jones," "Article, feature or reference to G.B. Jones," and "G.B. Jones' zine or film review/promotion."

Series 3, "G.B. Jones' ephemera," contains a large promotional flyer forG.B. Jones by G.B. Jones, an event series hosted by Amsterdam-based and women-led nonprofit Kunstverein in 2023.

Series 1 and 2 are physically arranged alphabetically by creator last name; each folder is labeled with the last and first name of the creator following the titles of their zines.

Accruals:

Accrurals for Series 1 and Series 3 are expected.

Physical location:

This collection is located in the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library. To use this collection, please contact the Barnard Archives and Special Collections at 212.854.4079 or archives@barnard.edu.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Preferred citation:

G.B. Jones Collection, 1985-2022; Box and Folder; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Researchers wishing to view items (in the reading room or remotely) which were created or co-created by G.B. Jones must sign a form acknowledging that they are using the materials for personal research purposes. The collection has no other access restrictions

Terms of access:

G.B. Jones retains copyright for any materials created by her and must approve requests to publish, exhibit or commercialize works works created by her, inclusive of drawings, artwork and the zine J.D.'s. Other materials in the collection may either be under copyright of other creators or are otherwise sensitive, and the responsibility to secure copyright permission or creator consent rests with the patron.

Reproductions can be made for personal research purposes. G.B. Jones must approve requests to reproduce works created by her, inclusive of drawings, artwork and the zine J.D.'s.

Location of this collection:: Barnard Archives & Special Collections

Barnard Archives Home Page
Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning 423
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027, USA
Before you visit:: Please contact archives@barnard.edu with research requests or to schedule a visit; see our website for more information.

Contact:: archives@barnard.edu

Collection