Rebecca McNamara
CAS/COM, 2008
1) What have you been doing since you graduated from BU? Details about your current and past employment? Accomplishments you’re proud of? Challenges you’ve encountered?
My first post-grad job was as an Editorial Assistant at The Monacelli Press, then a division of Random House. I loved the project-based work of art-book publishing, but was eager to create my own scholarship again. I went to graduate school and began a museum curatorial career. I’ve held positions at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields; and am now Associate Curator at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, where I’ve been for 7 years.
2) How your time in the department shaped your professional and personal lives?
The department taught me how to look, write, and talk about art and, critically, offered practical art-world experience. A class assignment to visit the ICA became a memorable conversation topic in an interview for my first post-grad job; I submitted a BU seminar paper as a writing sample for my grad-school applications. My experiences formed the groundwork for all of the accomplishments to come.
3) Any advice that you would’ve given to your younger self?
See more art, look closely when you find it, and seek the kind of art that isn’t in your textbooks. I can’t begin to imagine all the art that was around the corner from BU’s campus that I missed.