Joanna Wason (née Griffiths) was born in 1952 in Berlin where her father was involved in Cold War intelligence gathering. Stalin's unpredictability prompted her mother to return to Devon with Joanna and her brothers, and eventually in her twenties Joanna moved to Cornwall. In the late-1980s she was employed by Janet Leach as her workshop assistant at the Leach Pottery in St Ives. After Janet's death in 1997, Joanna remained at the pottery concentrating on her own pots for almost a decade. She still works in the gallery at the Leach Pottery, but makes pots at home, in a caravan in her garden.