When Bonnie Laing Malcolmson started as a 17-year-old student at the Museum Art School at the Portland Art Museum in 1970, there wasn’t much of a Northwest art collection.

Malcolmson graduated and pursued a career in arts administration. She eventually served as the director of academic affairs at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and then the president of the Oregon College of Arts and Craft, where she spearheaded a nearly $15 million dollar expansion.

By the time Malcolmson returned to the Portland Art Museum in 2010, this time as the Curator of Northwest Art, a major gift from Arlene and Harold Schnitzer had transformed the two floors that used to house the Museum School into the Center for Northwest Art. And fittingly enough, artists Malcolmson had once gone to school with, or later admitted to schools, filled its collection.

This week, Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson retired. But not after rehanging the Center for Northwest ARt one last time. She talked with our producer Aaron Scott about seismic changes over the course of her career.