Painter and printmaker Vina Cames was born Melvina Jane Cochran in Oakland, CA on March 16, 1908. As a child her family relocated to Eureka, CA, where she graduated from high school in 1925. The following year she and her brother, Steve, traveled with their father Robert Cochran to Laramie, Wyoming for Robert's job as a railroad worker. Their mother remained in California. In 1927 Cames moved to Colorado to take courses at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, studying under Henry Varnum Poor and Boardman Robinson. There, she met Greek immigrant Louis Cames who she married in Denver on November 10, 1927. They moved to Wyoming for Louis's job as a roadmaster for Western Railroad. They had a daughter, Louise, soon thereafter.

During the Depression Cames was employed as an artist through the Federal Art Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration. She also studied at the University of Wyoming from 1937 to 1938 and held her first solo exhibition at the Chappel House in 1938. At this time she was a member of the Wyoming Artists Association and exhibited regularly in the state. She would go on to show at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Denver Art Museum, Artists West of the Mississippi (Colorado Spring Art Center), the Seattle Art Museum, and more. Among the exhibitions she participated in was the 1939 New York World's Fair. 

In the mid 1940s she and Louis separated and Cames returned to California, settling in San Francisco and going by her maiden name once more. Vina Cochran found employment at the National Lead Paint Company, for whom she worked for many years, and continued to focus on her own artistic output which soon expanded to included ceramics and pastels. She remained in San Francisco until her death on October 30th, 1971.