Ronald Mills-Pinyas

 

Born in Neosho, Missouri in 1952, Ronald DeWitt Mills (later Mills-Pinyas) lived the first two years of his life in Germany and later in New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. He moved to California in 1970 for his education; later moving to Oregon in 1979 to continue an artistic and teaching career.  Ron currently lives with his wife Maria Isabel Pinyas-Mills in Arenys de Mar, Spain and in Amity, Oregon.  ​

 

A studio painter, printmaker and muralist, Mills-Pinyas is represented in Barcelona, Spain; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and in Bodrum, Türkiye by VILLA DEL ARTE GALLERIES & MANDARIN ORIENTAL; in Santa Ana, Costa Rica by GALERIA EMAI; and in Portland, Oregon in selected exhibitions by GILLIA GALLERY, VERUM ULTIMUM.

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Mills-Pinyas has created permanent murals in Spain, Oregon, three in Costa Rican towns (San Pedro, San Ramón and Santa Ana) and one in Mexico in Cuernavaca at the Universidad Autónoma de Morelos. In 2012, Mills-Pinyas created murals for Oregon State University's Hallie Ford Center in Corvallis with support from the Ford Family Foundation and the Oregon Arts Commission. In 2016 he completed a large cycle of murals at EMAI, School of the Integrated Arts in Santa Ana, Costa Rica (Escuela Municipal de Artes Integradas). Mills-Pinyas has had extended residencies in Spain, France, Mexico and Costa Rica. Currently, Mills-Pinyas is painting a series of murals in a historic home in Arenys de Mar, Spain, where he resides part of the year.  

 

Mills-Pinyas won two Senior Fulbright Research Grants for ethno-aesthetic research in Central America (1987-88, 1994-95).  He also won an Oregon Council for the Humanities grant in 1999 toward the study of Costa Rican indigenous populations with the now late Costa Rican ethnomusicologist Dr. Jorge Luis Acevedo.

 

Acevedo and Mills-Pinyas founded CEDIA in 1986, a research organization and ethnological collection attending to tribal cultural arts and shamanism among various threatened tribal groups in Central America (Cabécar, Bribri, Térraba, Maleku, Boruca). CEDIA has collaborated through lectures and loans to domestic and international museums.  The Mills-Acevedo CEDIA collection and archives are located in Santa Ana, Costa Rica and the bulk of the rest of the voluminous collection is being donated to the Universidad de Costa Rica for another museum in Turrialba since Jorge's passing in 2025.  

 

In 2025, the Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rice published on paper and electronically a major book by Acevedo and Mills documenting this work and the collection, including extensive photography, in the free ebook pdf version Cosmovisión y Expresiones Estéticas de los Pueblos Originarios en la Actualidad Costarricense (Spanish language ebook).  A bilingual summary catalog,  Culturas Indigenous Vivas en Costa Rica / Living Indigenous Culture of Costa may be downloaded here.

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Mills-Pinyas holds a BA in studio art and philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara en 1973 and and a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California in studio art and philosophy en 1976.  

 

As a professor, Mills-Pinyas developed curriculum and taught various courses in drawing, painting, printmaking, thesis, multi-media art forms, design and art theory. He served in various administrative roles, including Chair of Humanities, representative to the Faculty Executive Council, Art Department Chairman and other campus-wide committees. Mills-Pinyas served as Professor of Studio Art for forty years at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.  He was named Edith Green Distinguished Professor of Art in 1994 and was the recipient of the first Thomas and Julie Olds Award for Artistic Excellence in 2014. Mills-Pinyas has taught at the University of Costa Rica in San Pedro; Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; the University of Morelos in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Pitzer College in Claremont, California; Claremont Graduate University; and Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.  

 

Ron has three sons and three grandchildren. Aside from his passion to paint, Mills' interests include long-distance hiking, particularly along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the Camino Portugues, and the Camino Francigena in Switzerland and Italy. 

 

See:  Writings About Ron Mills' work. 

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