Jane Neff has a degree in architecture from Carleton University and has worked professionally as an architect. After attending numerous ceramic classes and workshops, she began to create the raku tiles and vessels for which she is best known. She states that her style has evolved from her background in architecture and in landscape design; her work is about "shelter and metamorphosis" and the "search for lessons in natural cycles to balance the seemingly conflicting human needs for permanence and security, with the needs of growth and change over the passage of time." This "place of ambiguity" is explored through Neff's work that celebrates "the diversity of colour, texture and form in our physical world." Neff is located in Elora, Ontario.

Jane Neff prefers the raku method of firing clay because it combines the four elements--earth, wind, fire and water--"in a relatively spontaneous manner [that] seems appropriate" to meaning of her work.