Gretchen Milhaupt, a third-generation Californian, was born in San Mateo in 1944.  She began life with a scar on her left eye, allowing that eye to see only blurs of color.  Her vision impairment was not discovered until she was eight years old.  This handicap, combined with the natural vividness of California light, developed in Gretchen a pronounced love and understanding of color and formed the unique vision that is evident in her painting today.

She is the great-granddaughter of a flamboyant Scottish artist (Marshall) who supported his wife and 11 children painting landscapes in British Columbia.  As a youth, Gretchen spent much time making art with his daughter Araminta, her grandmother.  Throughout these sessions, her grandmother told Gretchen she had natural talent for painting and encouraged her.

Gretchen grew up with an eager interest in fine art and wanted to attend art school but her father did not support this.  She became an early 1960s dropout in Eugene, Oregon.  In 1968 she gave birth to her son Rainbow, now known as Bo.  Later, she married a much older and well known Eugene photographer and lived as his spouse and workmate for over a decade.  During these years she learned the basics of composition, color and content that would eventually shape her own painting.  This was also the 1970s, a vibrant and tumultuous time to live an artist’s life in a progressive Oregon town.  Much of the content and many of the life stories that find their way into Gretchen’s current work come from this period.

Though Gretchen’s life was interesting, it was not always easy to be the young wife of an important artist.  When her husband committed suicide, leaving her a widow at age 35, she was more than ready to strike out on her own.  The couple had been planning a trip to Japan, so Gretchen went alone and lived in Kyoto for three years where she pursued her interest in Japanese art.  She found creative inspiration at the world famous Zen rock garden Ryuanji and would later create a series of paintings exploring the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.  She also became interested in Japanese textiles and started a business importing fabrics to U.S. fashion designers.  She has in later life described this time as her “traveling silk merchant from the Orient days………..”Upon her return she continued to live in Eugene where she worked as a real estate agent. 

In 1991 Gretchen came to Portland with a mission to become serious about painting.  She spent three years drawing from the figure and was greatly influenced by life drawing classes with Phil Sylvester.  Phil noticed her eye for form, showed her how to keep the work moving and encouraged her to freely express herself.  She remembers him peeking over her shoulder and saying “Hey, that drawing has a life of its own, so don’t get in the way!”  During this time she supported herself as a real estate appraiser.

In 1994, Gretchen lost her day job and worried about how she would continue to support her growing need to paint.  Her brother Charles, a movie producer and New York city executive, observed her talent and drive.  He offered to send her to art school.  Gretchen attended the esteemed Pacific Northwest College of Art and found tutelage under Portland artists Arvie Smith, Tom Fawkes, Tom Cramer and Joseph Mann.  She graduated in May 2000 with a BFA in Painting.  This included taking her junior year “abroad” in New York city participating in the New York Studio Program one semester and going to Parson’s School of Design in the Fine Arts Dept for another semester.  1997-98 was an exceptional year in her art education, she was offered several shows and had her first “one man” show in September 1997 at the Ilana Lobet Gallery on the upper west side.

Gretchen has exhibited and sold her work since 1994.  Her subjects includes Zen rocks, flowers, portraits, and figurative scenes.  Her art reflects the subjects and objects that have littered her colorful life:  Northwest landscapes and seascapes, human psychology, racism, gender, sexual relationships and other social issues of our day.  In her classes and the art circles of Portland, Gretchen’s strong character is notable and she is outspoken in her views of art and her personal vision of her own painting. 

Gretchen currently resides in Portland, Oregon where one admirer of her work
has said he thinks of her as the Gauguin of Portland Parks.  When not painting, she is an avid ping pong player, reads, tends her garden and loves to cook.  She is also involved as a trained volunteer for the Portland Fire Department’s neighborhood emergency team (NET) program.