We recently connected with Tokeli Baker and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tokeli, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Being the President of this organization does not mean having an ego boost. It means being a part of something bigger than myself. It means being part of a dedicated team. It means working hard every day for the right reasons. It means visionary leadership where I feel I can help an organization that serves an artist population to grow and flourish.

I’ve always been the kind of person who sees what they call The Bigger Picture. It’s like I can see into the future, knowing what needs to be done in three months to make something happen in six. It means seeing all the moving parts and how they work together. When I was about 13, I wandered around my neighborhood (at the time I was living in Bankers Hill) and got a bunch of kids together (I kind of strong-armed them) to do an original production of “Little Red Riding Hood” in a makeshift theatre in my back yard. We rehearsed our butts off and then I dragged them around back to their houses to guilt their parents into attending. We even had chairs and programs. I think it was something I just had to do. I was tired of the isolation of watching cartoons after school. I wanted something more, not just for me but for the whole rag-tag gang. And it worked. The kids felt proud and the parents at least pretended to be impressed.

There was something about that experience (and about a 1,000 other youthful experiences) that shaped me. I wanted to lead people into something better, something more, something meaningful that maybe they didn’t even know they had in them. And that’s how I do it today: visionary leadership, pulling it all together for the greater good.

Tokeli, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always loved art, in all its forms–theatre, music, film, fine art, all of it. I love expression. I love seeing others acting out of expression and passion. I have tried throughout my career to not only express myself but find ways of supporting other artists in their unique path towards self-expression. That is why being the President of a small non-profit arts organization has been a position of passion for me. The Escondido Art Association is Escondido’s oldest fine art organization since 1959, when it used to be called Showcase for the Arts. We are a platform, not only through out galleries and exhibitions, but through the many programming opportunities and online presence we offer to our membership. We have a gallery on Grand Avenue in the heart of the Historic Downtown district. We are also proud to announce this year that we are in partnership with the North Island Credit Union and have a second gallery in their Community Room. We showcase not only member artists but all local artists in categories such as: acrylic, watercolor, oil, mixed media, collage, sculpture, photography and so much more. The main thing I want local artists to know is that we are truly considered a “community gallery,” in that we do not “Jury” the work in. If you submit, you’re in the show, Full-stop! You do not have to get juried in. We want to see beginner artists right alongside great masters of their medium. We consider this an honor to ALL artists in our community.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I make tons of mistakes. I have a mentor that says if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not doing anything. You have to make mistakes in your journey; how else are you going to learn anything? Here’s a backstory: One time, early on in my presidency, I hosted a College Open House. We had it all planned out, got other non-profits on Grand to participate, printed at flyers, put it on the website and in emails, on social media. We called all the colleges, although that should’ve been my first hint things were going to go badly because it was pretty hard to connect with decision-makers. Basically, we had a big party and it was beautiful–except no college kids showed up. I mean a few did (heck, my daughter and her now husband were two of them), but what happened there in the communication gap? Colleges like to mainly encourage activities on their own campuses. It’s hard enough for them to attract their own students to events they are hosting, let alone send them over to Escondido. I got one of my present interns at the time to bring flyers over to the local college, but it was last-minute. I didn’t know we would have such a difficult time recruiting, given all the perks we were giving in our college internship program. What I should have done, and subsequently have accomplished, was establish relationships with leadership at colleges first. Everything is about relationships and networking. We have attended college job fairs at THEIR locations since that time and had a lot of luck building up our program. Once we get the interns, they LOVE it! In fact, most of them end of staying with us in a volunteer position long after their official for-credit internship is over. I’m proud of that. But it took me a while to figure out how to attract and find them and to bring the correct leadership at colleges on-board with my program. I’m glad I finally figured it out, because we have a thriving and wonderful internship program now. But learning is about making mistakes and making adjustments.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think that it’s possible that I think of being an artist in different ways than most people. I am not just a painter, singer, writer, etc. I am a thinker of thoughts, a dreamer of dreams, an imaginative creature who embodies the creative path in ALL that I do, not just in art-making. I feel like when I make a flyer for the team, it’s a creative endeavor. When I host a board meeting, it’s an opportunity to be imaginatively persuasive. When I bring together our community at a great party, that’s when I get to shine. I love living a life of possibilities and I feel like that it is because I’ve allowed my natural creativity to flow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.escondidoartassociation.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/escondidoartassoc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/escondidoartassoc

Image Credits

Dianna Ippolito