After graduation, she taught art and other subjects throughout Northern California. She still teaches art at Kashia reservation where she has been the art teacher for the past 7 years. She took time out from teaching to raise a family and pursue her art further on her own.

She and her husband, also an artist, had a gallery and studio in Monterey on Cannery Row in the sixties in the same spot that the Monterey Aquarium stands today. There, she met with, and exchanged ideas with other artists. She studied painting with Alex Gonsalves and learned the art of etching at the Carmel Art Center. Loving the reflective quality and detail of the print, she studied etching further at San Francisco Graphics Arts Studio and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

Over the years, she has shown her work in many exhibits in various locales throughout the United States. She has won many awards (most recently, first prize in printmaking at Art in The Redwoods, and a judge's award from the Beaux Arts show in Point Arena). Arna retired from teaching full time ten years ago and is able to devote much more time to making art. She works in several media including painting from nature and sketching and painting the human figure.

Arna Means is an artist of many media, she feels this comes from being an art teacher in the California public schools for close to 40 years. She has a special connection with printmaking and experiments constantly with the media. She moved to the coast from the bay area 20 years ago to teach and do art...and continues to do both.

Arna has won several awards locally and further afield from her intaglio prints, done in her studio on a small press. Besides her larger award winning pieces, Arna does small original handpainted etchings on greeting cards, always popular locally.

© 2006 Arna Means

Arna Means
P.O. Box 1286
Gualala, CA 95445
(707) 884-1608