Millie Donovan: Bringing The Flavor of Puerto Rico To Stonington

I see Stonington based artist, blogger, and poet around town every so often.

Donovan and her business partner Laura Gaffka founded a venue for contemporary artists based on community spirit in Above Elite Studios.

The warm sun soaked Mediterranean mixed media paintings Donovan creates and her focus on community makes perfect sense to me when Donovan mentions she was born in Puerto Rico.

The daughter of a mechanical engineer, Donovan started school knowing only Spanish, and spent time moving back forth between the Puerto Rico and the states.

“I didn’t quite fit in here and in Puerto Rico, I was the American girl,” Donovan said. “It was an identity shift being bi-cultural."

Donovan returned to the U.S. in high school and has remained here since. But the shifts back and forth gave Donovan a sense of fortitude to seize every moment and taught her to take a fearless approach toward life, which later infiltrated her artwork.

Now fully immersed as a mixed media artist, writer and blogger, Donovan takes a fearless approach to creating art and banding together with other like minded artists, creating a friendly, non-pretentious art community.

One of Donovan’s favorite activities is volunteering graphic design services for the . Every year, Millie creates and donates an original painting for Stars Over Stonington—a gala auction event. She then incorporates her painting into the graphic design to create a complete look for the event.

Although Donovan studied art in college, she first took the pre-med path, which eventually gave way to her creative drive. After college, Donovan worked in corporate marketing followed by project management at an ad agency. Her work experience exposed her to graphic design and Donovan returned to Rochester Institute of Technology for a second degree.

“While I was working on my master’s degree, I took a couple of fine art classes including experimental painting,” Donovan said. Those were the classes which woke me up.” 

She worked for years as a graphic designer and blogger. In 2001, Donovan was one of the first bloggers for Kodak and continued her work until eventually the scales tipped and she realized she was ready to step into the realm of fine arts and personal expression.    

Donovan and her husband originally settled in upstate New York but as an island girl, she needed to be near the coastline. Her husband grew up in Stonington surrounded by family, so it made sense to move back in 2003 with a little convincing on Donovan’s behalf.

“Coming here, I was so inspired by this area—the skyscape and the shoreline is beautiful,” she said. “I would be looking at these remarkable magentas and cerulean blues. It’s difficult to keep from touching the canvas here.“  

Describing herself as a cautious jumper who's not afraid to get dirty, Donovan has shown her work in New Haven at ARTE inc., Expressiones Cultural Center, The Hygienic, the Art Emporium, , the COMO, the Village Fair and had her own gallery for five years. 

“I consider my work to be a direct collage of my life, it’s meant to be colorful, draw people in, draw attention, but I hope my work becomes an initiator in a conversation,” Donovan said.

Currently, Donovan works in her studio beside Gaffka creating contemporary works for their collaborative upcoming show December 9 and 10. 

“We have a lot of maritime painters [locally] but we like to support non-traditional artists and acknowledge it’s a valuable form of expression,” Donovan said. “We seek a reflection of the individual spirit and not just a reflection of the area.”