Jane Voorhees was born in 1951 and grew up in the New York metropolitan area. She studied at Eastern Michigan University, The School of Visual Arts and received a B.A. from Livingston College at Rutgers University. Her supplemental education was in the form of an apprenticeship to jeweler Paul Gollhardt, enameling with Bill Helwig, and jewelry workshops with Chuck Evans, Rick Marshall, Marci Zelmanoff and Mary Ann Scheer. She studied painting at the Montclair Art Museum and had five years of pastel portraiture at the Yard School of Art under Margaret Yard Tyler.