This summer, Miranda Miller began a new chapter as a preparator at the Chicago Children’s Museum. Raised in Pittsburgh with deep ties to Carnegie Mellon — her parents, grandfather, and great aunt are all alumni — Miranda’s post-graduation journey has also included work as a costume seamstress and leather worker. Now, we’re catching up with this consummate maker to explore her unique connection to the School of Art and how her practice has evolved since graduating in 2020.

1

Tell us about your role as a preparator at the Chicago Children’s Museum.

I think it’s something I’ve been ramping up to for a while. Basically, we help design exhibits. We maintain permanent exhibits and install new or traveling exhibits. We clean them, fixing things that need to be fixed and making new things as they come. The job kind of changes day to day. I realized in school when I did an artist residency at the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum — where you’re doing a bunch of different skills and working with people of different ages — that I really loved being in a place where it was a new job every day and you got to wear a bunch of different hats.

2

What does your creative practice look like now outside of your job?

From time to time, I feel really self-conscious about going from a fine art school to not being a studio artist, and it was something I was fearful about when I was in school, too. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable separating my creative practice from my day to day. I seek out jobs that allow me some degree of creativity, and then on my own, I just pursue the creative things that bring me joy. I’m not trying to make them for an end goal, like money or being in shows. I have always really enjoyed sewing, so I make most of my clothes, and I build furniture for my house.

3

In your Senior Spotlight, you said, “my theory is to work in / with whatever accomplishes the job.” Is that still important to your process?

Since graduating, I’ve been focusing on how I move in life through two different principles. The first is paying attention to the things that I was doing in school that I actually did out of joy, not just because it was for a project or because I needed to work with that medium. And secondly being nice to the people around me. A lot of times, the way I would get jobs is because someone that I knew or someone that I worked with knew somebody else. I got my job as a fur suit seamstress, because, in college, I just wanted to make a giant Furby puppet and work with faux fur. It was for a class, but I just wanted to do it, and that’s how I got the job making bespoke, shop-designed fur suits. I want to be “that guy.” You know how you need something done, and someone’s like, “oh, I have a guy for that”? That that’s my goal. I think the creative fields that I’ve moved in are too unpredictable to try to plan ahead of time. You just have to work with what you can do and what you enjoy doing.

4

You’re a Pittsburgh native and part of a legacy of School of Art alumni in your family. You even did four years of Pre-College Art here. So what do you think was unique about your experience?

If I’m being honest, I kind of didn’t want to come to CMU, because it felt like following a direct path. But I really loved the people there after doing Pre-College, so it convinced me to come for college. I feel like I’ve always been really physically grounded, at least with art. I’m very big on process and technique and how to make something, getting really in the weeds. I found that being at CMU, it wasn’t really structured classes, like, “Oh, you’re gonna make this and then you’re gonna make that.” It was more trying to guide you toward the things that you really connected with and the mediums that you thought matched your practice and how conceptually to talk about why.

While I was in school, that frustrated me a little bit, but being out in the world now, I’m really grateful that I had people who were pushing me to try new things and try to understand why I was drawn to the things that I am. I had so many great professors who would help me figure out specific techniques and processes. So I feel like I got a really tailored education that was probably different than everyone else’s around me.

5

What advice would you give to students now?

Pay attention to the things that you’re doing just because they bring you joy. I feel like there were so many projects and classes that it was easy to get bogged down. But the things that have really guided where I am today are the things that I look back and I realize I did just because I wanted to, and it made me happy. Keep doing that.

More from Miranda Miller | mirandamillerart.com | @miranda_miller_art

“5 Questions” is an ongoing series by the School of Art that asks alumni who are transforming art, culture, and technology about their current work and time at Carnegie Mellon.