Born in Manhatten,raised in Beverly Hills and San Francisco, Donna Wilson Long received BA degrees in Special Education and Elementary Education at Vanderbilt University In Nashville,TN in 1969. In 1971 she received another BA in Humanistic Psychology from Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA. Donna's passion for horses, how they lived and who their handlers were began when she was six. Long began riding when she was a ten year old boarding student at Dominican Convent in San Rafael, CA. She taught riding at commercial facilities from age 15 until she and her husband opened her own stable when she was 24.

In 1966, divorced, Long,her three children and a horse ventured to Nashville where she attended
Vanderbilt,taught horsemanship, and judged horse shows on weekends. At Vanderbilt University Long enrolled in a Special Education program for eight non-verbal children deemed autistic at time of birth and institutionalized between birth and one year of age. Using her own children's newly acquired pony she made a unique breakthrough in verbal communication with some of these 8 to 12 year olds.

Over a span of thirty plus years donna was a professional trainer of several breeds and types of equines, her students and herself exhibiting many of them. She held the American Horse Show Association's judges card for ten years.

Long's enthusiasm for natural history and environmental subjects found her in both Alaska and Patagonia in 1975. She joined like-spirited friends from San Francisco, New York, and Buenos Aires in rubber rafts in the Argentine Atlantic Ocean as well as on shore up-close amidst Southern Right Whales, Orca, Sea Elephants, Chinstrap and Magellenic Penguins, many species of birds and of course, on shore, the elusive guanacos and avid environmentalists.

Upon return to San Francisco, Donna bought a used Nikon camera, a Mamiya lens and enrolled in basic photography classes at University of California's San Francisco Extension. With eager eye, hot heart and developing skills, Donna and came ra worked their way aboard Humpback Whale research vessels in Hawaiian waters for two winters,. Leica and Canon systems stuffed the backpack. In 1978 Long was a member of Sir Peter Scotts delegation to the International Whaling Commission in Brighton, England.

In 1980 as an Artist-in-Residence photographer at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, Long photographed Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama among at least 100 other spiritual leaders at the first Global Survival Conference held for one week at Oxford University. In 1990 she photographed in the same capacity the Global Survival Conference in Rio de Janiero, BR. 1978 to 1991, plane, was Associate Editor of the Palm Beach Chronicle, a weekly fashion, society, and travel magazine which showcased her interviews with fashion designers and her off-season travels.

Long didn't pick up a paintbrush until she enrolled in a class at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida at the age of 66, but her background as a photographer is apparent in her compositional devices. Long focuses in, crops the view and freezes the action to mimic the immediacy of a snapshot in many of her oil paintings. In her recent fantasy narratives, on the other hand, she uses a distant, aerial view to accommodate myriad activities, whether equine or human, spread across the picture plane.

Long has previously exhibited her paintings at Donna Tribby Fine Arts in West Palm Beach during
Hurricane Wilma. In her first year of drawing she was awarded Reserve Grand Prize at the Armory Art Center's Annual Student Show 2004. In 2005 she was the Grand Prize winner at the same show. In 2006 she received Honorable Mention in the same show.