For more than 40 years, Edna Arnow made stoneware pottery in the basement of her house in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on the North Side. Largely self-taught, she became a well-known and respected craftswoman in the Midwest. She developed distinctive textured glazes and clay bodies.
In the 1950s, she was part of an artists' coop gallery with potter Earl Hooks and others. She had exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Chicago Public Library. She appeared on local televison, giving demonstrations and taught at the Evanston Art Center.
Most weekends during the summer, she and her husband, Robert - who made pottery, too, but worked as a Chicago policeman - packed up the Pontiac station wagon with functional ware for art fairs around the city and suburbs. For some 30 years, she always went to the art fairs at Old Town, The South Side, Evanston and Oak Park - and often did others as well.