Gillchrest moved to Cornwall in 1958, and began to paint 'enchanting pictures of Cornish harbours.' [John MILLER, from Leave Tomorrow Behind].She was included in the RWA Artists of Cornwall Exhibition at Birmingham in 1972-3.

In 1979, she presented a particularly attractive painting entitled The Newlyn School Exhibition to the Permanent Collection at the Newlyn Orion Gallery (repr Hardie 1995, col pl section). Another of her works forms part of the permanent art collection of St Michael's Hospital (SMH) at Hayle. Her biography, including reproductions of an immense range of her work, was launched at the Wren Gallery in Oxfordshire by the director, Gill Mitchell, who had handled Joan's work for several years and had become a close friend. Frank Ruhrmund in his review reports that Joan had agreed to Gill's writing of the book, but not while she was alive, and also that her story should be told mainly through her pictures, with a minimum of text.

There is further information about this independent-spirited painter in a recent biography of the artist Adrian RYAN, who was Joan's partner, off and on, for some years.