A Minute with Victoria "Tory" King
/If you have visited the Polk Museum this past Fall or Winter, we’re sure you’ve seen Tory’s bright, beaming face at the front desk, welcoming you to the Museum. Joining our Museum team officially back in October 2019, Tory expanded upon her duties at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitors Center on the Florida Southern College campus by taking on the additional role of our Director of Retail Operations & Visitor Experience!
A little about Tory:
Tory is currently the Director of Retail Operations and Visitor Experience for both the Polk Museum of Art and the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitors Center at Florida Southern College. She moved to Florida from her home state of Oklahoma twenty years ago, and she has worked in the retail and customer service industry for over thirty years. Her personal motto is a Jon Batiste quote: You’re never too important to be nice to people.
What do you love most about your job? I love being a part of an entity that is constantly evolving and inviting. The Polk Museum of Art buzzes with its own energy, and it offers a comfortable rhythm to the art it encompasses, while welcoming each person who comes in for a visit. I am fortunate to have an incredibly talented and creative staff who collectively brings almost 20 years of retail and visitor experience and purchasing knowledge and who contribute to the social media platform of the Polk Museum of Art. The collaboration is marvelous!
If you could switch jobs with someone else in the Museum for a day, who would it be and why? Probably Gregory Mills [Director of Security, Technology, and Photography]. He does a lot of interesting work behind the scenes for the Museum, and I think doing something outside of the public realm would be a nice change of pace. I am an introvert at heart.
What do you do for fun outside of the Museum? I am an avid storm chaser. If there are tornado-warned storms in the country, I am usually following them on RadarScope and 5-0 radio in conjunction with other storm chasers who are on the ground reporting live coverage from their vehicles tracking the tornado. I also dabble in other forms of weather.
What has been your favorite exhibition at the Museum? Spirits [our Fall African and Oceanic art exhibition]! The stories behind the art were as beautiful as the pieces themselves. It was vibrant and alive!
Share a story of one of your favorite Museum memories: Meeting artist Jonathan Kioko.
If you were on a deserted island, what one piece of artwork would you choose to take with you: Give me anything by Edward Hopper.
Hope you enjoyed getting to know our one and only Tory a bit better! Stop by soon to see her at the front desk and say hello (or to ask her about what storms are headed our way . . .).