About Gretchen Hillhouse
Artly Therapy Founder
Hello there!
I’m Gretchen Hillhouse: artist, neuro-associative clinician and founder of Artly Therapy.
To capture my journey in a nutshell, after nearly 3 decades of creative practice and a long-held interest in ‘what makes people tick’, I best describe my life’s work as laying at the intersection of creativity and empowerment.
It all started when I pulled out of a psychology degree to go to art school.
This genius move kicked off a multi-disciplinary creative career informed by a postgraduate degree in Fine Art, with further studies in glass and ceramic design and metal-smithing.
As a visual artist I created sculptural work both for exhibition and for commission for several years which saw my work attract awards including the Sidney Myer Award, and gain recognition through representation in public collections throughout Australia and in private collections internationally.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…….as a sole parent of two preschool children I started working on smaller scale pieces and established Gretchen Hillhouse Design. From the humble beginnings of my back shed it became an award-winning jewellery, clothing and design object business, supplying over 100 outlets around Australia and exporting to France and Argentina for 12 years.
With my design business thriving, I was approached to help grow other people’s businesses and help them improve the performance of their teams. Always keen to learn and serve people, I headed back down the psychology path and became a neuro-associative clinician gathering a swag of accreditations along the way.
Mixing this exciting professional stuff with a healthy dose of chopping wood and carrying water, with a dash of duck-tending, a spot of camping, a bit of bushwalking and a splash of sailing, I guided my sons to manhood. After my sons left home for university, I went on to develop the capacities of senior business and organisational leaders and their teams both in Australia and the Asia-Pacific for a few years, before seeing the opportunity to change the face of architectural spaces by combining my passion for people and aesthetics. Currently as director of Artly Architectural I lead a team to create original art works and infrastructure design that bring architectural spaces to life.
So how did Artly Therapy come about?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent the first wave of lockdown in Melbourne and was acutely aware of the increased rates of stress and trauma many people were experiencing and I wanted to do something about it.
I recognised that I could combine my years of creative and psychological practice to offer people much needed therapeutic support which they could access even under the most severe pandemic restrictions.
And so Artly Therapy was born.
Artly Therapy’s mission is to support you to experience:
a deep sense of calm and internal balance
a strong relationship with yourself
rest, restoration and renewal to be better able to live the life you feel drawn to and born for.
If you’d like to find out more about how I can support your organisation or community, feel free to contact me here. I’d love to support you.