Jody Klevit received a BS in education from Temple University. She was an active member of the docent program of the Portland Art Museum for forty years and was a cofounder of the Native American Art Council of the Portland Art Museum. She coauthored the first edition of Oregon Painters and served as a consultant for the exhibition of the Saward Art Collection, one of the premier corporate collections of work by Northwest artists from the 1950s to the 1970s.