VIVIAN JO BAKER
July 22, 1941 to July 31, 2026
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Vivian Jo Baker, 85, of Oklahoma City, passed away on July 31, 2026. Born Vivian Jo Benda on July 22, 1941, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, Vivian lived a life filled with family, creativity, conversation, and a remarkable ability to see beauty and possibility almost everywhere she looked.

Vivian was an artist in every sense of the word. Art wasn’t simply something she did; it was part of the way she saw the world. Where someone else might see something old, broken, discarded, or destined for the trash, Vivian saw what it could be. And somehow, in her hands, it became a treasure.

Painting was her true love, but there was hardly an art or craft she wouldn’t try. She worked with ceramics, stained glass and glass art, quilted, sewed, crocheted, and created in countless other ways. Nearly everything around her eventually seemed to receive her artistic touch, and there wasn’t much that couldn’t be improved with a little paint.

But perhaps Vivian’s greatest creative gift wasn’t simply making beautiful things. It was teaching others how to make them too.

She was always willing to share a how-to, demonstrate a technique, or teach someone something she had learned. More importantly, she taught the people around her to open their minds and look beyond what was sitting in front of them. Don’t just see what something is. Imagine what it could be.

She was endlessly resourceful. If Vivian needed something and didn’t have it, there was a pretty good chance she could figure out how to make it herself, quite possibly out of a cardboard box.

Vivian lived in the same home from the early 1960s until her passing, and over those decades, it became a reflection of the woman who lived there. It was filled with family and memories, artwork and supplies, projects and treasures, and an almost inexplicable amount of stuff. She was so wonderfully organized that there were very few questions left unanswered about any corner or cubby of her home. The greater mystery was how she managed to fit so much into such a small space.

And then there were the phone calls.

Vivian loved to talk, and anyone who called her knew it was best to have at least an hour to spare. A conversation with Vivian wasn’t something to rush. You settled in and gave yourself over to it completely, even if somewhere along the way you realized you may have had this same conversation a thousand times before. Those familiar conversations, once so ordinary, are now among the things that will be missed most.

And getting Vivian off the phone was nearly impossible. Just when you thought the conversation was over, there was always one more thing she wanted to tell you. Then one more thing after that. There was always a reason not to hang up just yet. How fitting, and how heartbreaking, that now it is those of us left behind who have just one more thing we want to tell her. One more story. One more question. One more “I love you.” We understand now why it was so hard to hang up.

Vivian knew what she believed, and she held strongly to it. She was independent, capable, creative, organized, strong, loving, and unmistakably herself.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Billy R. Baker; her sons, Loren Baker and Michael Baker; and her grandson, David Campbell.

Vivian is survived by her devoted companion of eight years, Jack Keasler; her children, Lorina Boomhower, Janelle Ramsey, Nita Campbell, and John Baker; her grandchildren, Wes Campbell, Andrew Boomhower, Autumn Gimenez, Christina Corcoran, Ashily Ward, Corey Ramsey, and Bailey Ramsey; and 16 great-grandchildren, along with family, friends, students, and all those fortunate enough to have learned something from her along the way.

Each person who loved Vivian will carry their own memories of her. But there is one thing on which so many can agree: Vivian taught us how to see.

She taught us not to look at something only for what it was, but for what it could become. To find possibility in the discarded, usefulness in the ordinary, and beauty where someone else might have overlooked it.

That may be the greatest piece of art she ever created, because that way of seeing the world lives on in the people she taught.

Vivian was beautiful.

And so was the world she painted around her and those she loved.