Denese was born in 1951 in Santa Monica, California. She has fond memories of trips to Venice Beach with her parents as a young girl. Till this day she has a special passion for the ocean and palm trees. Eventually, her parents relocated to northeastern Ohio. She entered her first art exhibit, The Village Center Art Contest, in The Village Center in Niles, Ohio,  in 1966, receiving two Honorable Mentions. A few years later she illustrated poetry for George D. Kovach, who was performing at the Village Center and The Eastwood Mall. They collaborated to form Versary Greetings.

During 1967 Denese worked with her father, Nick J. Montecalvo, illustrating for the national CB'er Newsletter  and the MCEV NEWS. Other publications she worked on were the Buckeye  Van Association Newsletter in the early 70's and the Dana Paiges from 1987 to 1994.The Dana Paiges was an employee based communication within Packard Electric Division. She was responsible for the headline banner and graphic design. In 1988 she won a front page cover contest for the Christmas Issue.

While employed at Packard Electric Division, Denese attended numerous workshops within the corporation. She participated in the "PPS Program" and the "Reach for Excellence Program" at the Excellence Center In Vienna, Ohio. This also included a "Small Groups Dynamics " workshop during the week of Sept 17th, 1990. She was involved with the "Customer Contact" program that took her on trips to the Fort Wayne, Indiana truck plant - which focused on interactions with the company's customers. She sat in on numerous quality meetings, brainstorming with co-workers and management. She arranged and produced all visual training aides for the cutter training program for Plant 41 and also worked out preparations for a facility review. She served as a manufacturing instructor in the "World of Work Program" to encourage elementary students in career motivation, organized by the Warren City Schools. In June 2001 Denese successfully completed the 90 hour Supervisory Leadership Training Program at TCTC Adult Continuing Education Department. To read more on Denese please click here.