Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1963-[ca. 2009] (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
5cm of textual records
11 volumes
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Barbara Astman (1950- ) is a Toronto-based artist who has worked in a wide range of photographic and mixed-media formats. Born in Rochester (NY), Astman was educated at the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Craftsmen and, after moving to Toronto in 1970, the Ontario College of Art. She was a pioneer in the field of colour xerography, and her practice has included a mix of camera art, new media, sculpture and light projection installations. Thematically, her work has explored issues of identity, history, memory, systems of representation and gender perspectives, often involving her own body as a subject. She has executed a number of public art commissions for clients including the Calgary Winter Olympics, the City of Ottawa (St. Laurent Complex Recreation Project), Hayter Street Developments (Bay/Hayter Condominiums, Toronto) and Cadillac Fairview Corporation (Simcoe Place, Toronto). Astman is now a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, where she has been teaching since the mid-1970s. She is represented by the Corkin Gallery. Her work is found in prominent public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris, France), and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Series comprises Barbara Astman’s journals and journal / notebooks from 1974 to 2003. The contents of these volumes vary; sometimes the artist makes a narrative record of the events of daily life, sometimes she makes notes about artistic inspiration or more mundane memoranda. Often, she fills pages with found images, ephemera and Polaroid snapshots. There are numerous connections between the pages of these volumes and the artist’s finished works. All volumes contain some element of journal writing, which distinguishes them from the notebooks in Series 9. Accrual to series consists of two journals and one journal fragment from diverse periods in Astman’s life: a diary from her teen years, a baby journal documenting the infancy of her daughter Amy Astman Baker, and pages from a journal with collage elements from the early 2000s.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
See Series 9 for Astman’s address books and notebooks.
In Barbara Astman’s series Daily Collage (2011), the artist makes use of the journal format and found imagery. The roots of this work include her practice of keeping journals and notebooks.