"[1] Oppewall attended and graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she met future husband, Paul Schrader, who would go on to become a film director and screenwriter.
Oppewall said of the Eames designs, "I was so attracted by the contemporary feeling, the shapely sexy lines: totally different from the Sears, Roebuck middle-class stuff I'd grown up with.
'"[1] Oppewall obtained her master's degree from Bryn Mawr in 1969[2] and moved to Los Angeles, California.
According to some sources, Paul Schrader arranged an interview between Oppewall and Eames when he was writing a magazine article about the Eameses.
She began her career as a set and production designer in the early 1980s, with such films as the 1981 Brian De Palma thriller Blow Out.
"[1] One of her earlier movies was Tender Mercies, a 1983 film about an alcoholic country singer played by Robert Duvall.
Director Bruce Beresford praised Oppewall as "absolutely brilliant," especially for her attention to very small details, "going from the curtains to the color of the quilts on the floors.
"[1] She also built a replica of the ranch owned by Charles S. Howard, the owner of the racehorse Seabiscuit, out of fir planks.
In a similar episode, the owners of the Santa Anita racetrack were so impressed with her design for a tote board that they wanted to keep it.
[1] When Oppewall was assigned art director for the 2006 spy film The Good Shepherd, it took her a week to organize the number of set locations due to the large amounts of settings in the script, which included Cuba, Guatemala, Léopoldville, London, Moscow, New York and New Haven, Connecticut, among other places.