We All Have Colorful Pasts

Here is my Timeline Time Line

A colorful past is not just exciting, dramatic, or slightly scandalous. It is the story of an unconventional life. This is how I came to have one, become a Colorful Past expert, and discover everyone has one too.

— Puerto Rico, 1960s–70s —

I grew up in Puerto Rico, riding in the back seat of my father's black Chevrolet Impala with red Naugahyde seats, watching light transform the world through chrome-lined windows. Between sunrise and sunset, I fell in love with color, beauty, and life itself. I didn't know it then, but those early experiences became what I now call color baggage — the memories, meanings, and emotional connections we carry through color for the rest of our lives.

— Oregon, 1980s —

After my parents separated, my mother remarried and moved us from Puerto Rico to Oregon. The contrast between the Caribbean and the Pacific Northwest was unsettling. It would have been unbearable without the rooted, rooting love of my mother and grandmother. They watched me change majors like hairdos — four times, at four different colleges. Art Therapy. Architecture. Fashion Design. Graphic Design. I became a pharmaceutical sales rep and drove around until I finally felt the pull to settle down for good.​

— Belonging, early 1990s —

When my first daughter was born, everything changed. She was the homecoming I'd been waiting for all my life. Soon after, her sister arrived, and motherhood transformed the way I saw beauty, belonging, and the world.

It was time to stop being the passenger in someone else's life and become the driver — with two little girls in the back seat, with dreams and destinies of their own. I began creating colorful mixed-media artwork inspired by beauty, harmony, and belonging. The work sold quickly in galleries and art shows throughout the Northwest and beyond. While raising my daughters at home, I began transforming our house with paint, gardens, faux finishes, and color — and people started asking for help with theirs. 

— Becoming, mid-1990s —

If Puerto Rico taught me about the sovereignty of light, Oregon taught me about the sovereignty of shadows. Rain, fog, forests, moss, and mist expanded my understanding of beauty, harmony, and color itself. Painting became my way of recreating the warmth and light of Puerto Rico inside rainy Northwest winters.

I unpacked my color baggage — the memories and experiences that had made me fall in love with the world — and spread them across walls that became giant canvases. And overnight, so did my life. Color is a side effect of light, and so is speed. When you paint your home in colors you love, what you see and feel change overnight.

By making my daughters' lives more beautiful — with who I was, what I loved, and what I desired for them — I attracted more beauty into my own life at the speed of light. I discovered that color could transform not only canvases, but how people felt about themselves, their lives, and their home. "Whatever we harmonize, we magnetize."

— Birthing, 2000s —

What began as a personal act of transformation became Devine Color. Inspired by a childhood memory of stirring yogurt and paint, I created paint colors designed to feel soft, harmonious, emotional, and deeply personal. Painting began as a way to belong.

Then it became a way to become.

At the height of Devine Color's success, the housing market collapsed. An acquisition deal with Sherwin-Williams disappeared overnight. I thought it was the end. After selling Devine Color to Valspar, I spent five years with them — then walked away with a five-year non-compete and a new question: could I help people belong, become, and build shared dreams without a bucket of paint? I began to look for another way.

Through science. No wonder they call it the arts and sciences — valuing grammar, rhetoric, logic, creativity, and formal knowledge as a palette. What began as an art form evolved into a deeper exploration of beauty, belonging, harmony, care, language, and self-actualization.​ If you've read this far, you're already on the path.

— Destinies Ahead —

We are destined to own your colorful experiences, unpack them, and care for the world as your own. My work now lives at the intersection of color, care, and language — three ways into the same truth: we are here to become more fully ourselves. This is the story of how I colored my world into being.

What began with a bucket of paint became a body of work.

Three paths. One beautiful destiny.

Coloring is an act of belonging.

You are the palette.

Send this to someone you know.

Gretchen.

See my color work at colorbaggage.com