She was one of two children of Willam Francis and Elsa Brainin Wholly who ran an office furnishings business in New York City and maintained an upper-class standard of living.
After her formal training, she continued with sculpted portraiture and was commissioned to make several bronze portraits of various US personalities.
In 1963, Joan's husband moved to Guatemala City with his eldest son to work for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) s, and was hired by R.O.C.A.P.
Joan and a companion were later allowed to make a few rubbings of Monuments at Tikal and she found that her sculptor's touch and eye were well suited for the craft.
While practicing rubbings, Joan became intrigued by the idea of fashioning molds of the stones and creating replicas.
It occurred to her that, as a sculptor, she could put her talents to good use and help preserve the nation's cultural treasures that were under constant threat due to exposure to the elements and theft.
With the help of her husband's connections, Patten suggested to the government authorities that they make casts of the monuments to preserve and protect Maya sculpture.
The director of INGUAT (National Tourist Office of Guatemala) became enthused with the idea of monument reproductions and helped Joan to obtain the proper government permissions to start the task.
Today, many of these casts are on display along a garden pathway within Francisco Marroquín University adjoining the Popol Vuh Museum.
Having the governmental permission but little monies to support the work, she began to sell the rubbings to finance more expeditions into more Maya sites and she soon became one of the best practitioners of this art.
With rice paper hard to come by, Joan used oil pigments lightly tamped on stretched dyed cloth.
The combination of coloured fabrics and inks produced a polychromatic blueprint of the carved relief with crisp, well-defined lines outlining both figures and hieroglyphic passages.
Also, the cast possessed a clean, tight surface free of additional wear from lichen and plant growth.
The corpus of Patten rubbings number approximately nine hundred prints and range from single glyphic blocks to full altars and stelae.
A Preliminary List of Publications Featuring Patten Casts and/or Rubbings Beachy, Debra 1978 Stalking the stele in deepest Guatemala.