Jolene was born in Billings, Montana in 1952, and grew up in Missoula Montana. She traveled and lived in various parts of the Western US for a couple of years, and spent five years in Mexico. She returned to Montana and studied art at the University of Montana in Missoula for two years from 1977-79 before changing her major to Physical Therapy. She graduated in 1983 with a degree in PT and started a private practice in Great Falls, Montana. In 2003 she sold her practice and began to devote herself full time to the visual arts.

Photography and painting have been passions for years.  She began photographing dancers underwater in February of 2005.

Jolene is largely self-taught in photography and Photoshop, via books and online tutorials. She recently studied with John Paul Caponigro at his studio in Maine, and was selected as one of his "Next Step" alumni.   

Jolene has exhibited her underwater photography in various venues around Great Falls Montana, including the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in May of 2007, Gallery 16 in the summer of 2007, and a show at Bert and Ernie's in 2008.  She exhibited two windows of her underwater photography at the Urban Art Project in the summer of 2008.  The Bohemia Gallery in Ashland, Oregon currently represents her.