Jeffrey Jennings was born in Belfast, Maine in 1953 and grew up on the Maine coast. He attended undergraduate school at the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art) from 1972 to 1976, where he received his BFA. In 1980, he returned to New England where he worked in Maine and Massachusetts as a wooden boatbuilder and cabinetmaker. In 1986 he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana and attended the graduate program at the University of New Orleans and received his MFA in 1990.
Between 1991 and 2007, he taught art at the University of New Orleans, Loyola University, Delgado Community College, Country Day Creative Arts Program, and Louise S. McGehee School. From 1991 until its closing in 2005, Jennings was represented by Marguerite Oestreicher Fine Arts in New Orleans.
In July 2007, Jennings moved to Houston where he devotes his full-time efforts to making art.