Joan Rollins is a professor emerita of psychology at Rhode Island College where she taught from 1966 to 2014. Rollins has published numerous papers and a 1996 book titled Women's Mind's/Women's Bodies: The Psychology of Women in a Biosocial Context. She has served as chair of the Psychology Department at RIC, President of the Rhode Island Psychological Association, President of the New England Psychological Association, and as a member the Rhode Island Board of Examiners for Psychology and the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association.

Rollins began auditing studio art courses in 2008 with the encouragement of then Painting Professor Sam Ames. She went on to audit courses with Painting Professors Lisa Russell and Richard Whitten into her retirement. Since retiring, Rollins has embraced her enthusiasm for painting scenes from nature and moments of interpersonal connection. She continues to share her work with the community in local art exhibitions.

Summer Over the Ocean is a small painting that was in a Pawtucket Arts Collaborative show of small paintings. The then Director of the Bannister Gallery came to see the show and bought the painting for $30 for the Bannister Gallery collection.