Norma I. Quintana

Norma I. Quintana (born in Cleveland, Ohio) is a Puerto Rican American photographer and educator working in the tradition of social documentary. Quintana photographs with film, primarily in black and white using only available light. She is a founding member of the Bay Area nonprofit, Photo Alliance.[1]

Education & early career

Quintana graduated from Case Western University in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio with a Master of Science in Social Administration in Juvenile Justice. In the 1980s Quintana moved to California from the Midwest and worked in Human Resources Management at Hewlett Packard.

Photography career

Quintana began her career in documentary photography in the late 90s, attending Napa Valley College for a photography degree curriculum completed in 2001. She attended the Anderson Ranch Arts Center Photography Workshop with Shelby Lee Adams, and Maine Media Photography Workshop programs in Oaxaca, Mexico with both Mary Ellen Mark and Graciela Iturbide.

She has lectured nationally and internationally at major universities and completed residencies at Penn State and American University in Washington D.C. Exhibitions of her work have been displayed at the Zoller Gallery at Penn State, the Katzen Arts Center at the American University in Washington, D.C., Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco, San Francisco Camerawork and the UCR/California Museum of Photography.

Circus Chimera

In 1999, Quintana found a flyer at a local cafe for an American one-ring circus created by James K. Judkins, former Carson & Barnes Circus manager.[2][3] She requested and received permission from the performers to photograph them behind the scenes. Thus began a ten-year working relationship with the Circus Chimera, until it was forced to close in 2007 due to changes in the United States' temporary work visa program.[4][5]

Circus: A Traveling Life

The material from a decade of collaboration with the circus went into Quintana's book, Circus: A Traveling Life, published in Fall 2014. The book was reviewed on Slate,[6] CNN.com,[7] the UK Guardian[8] and Mother Jones.[9] Curious Animal Magazine featured an image from the series, “Smoke” in their “Best Images of 2014”.[10] A print feature appeared in B + W Magazine's March 2015 issue[11] and Quintana was invited to lecture about her Circus series at B&H Event Space in New York City[12]

Forage From Fire

On October 8, 2017 the Atlas Fire in Napa, California destroyed the artist's home and photography studio.[13] This launched her new series Forage From Fire which documents the charred items she recovered from the ashes and shot completely on her iphone. The work was partially funded by a grant from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.[14] A solo exhibition of the photographs and objects recovered from the fire was shown at SF Camerawork in October, 2018[15] and in group exhibitions at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and UCR/California Museum of Photography.[16]

Publications
  • Quintana, Norma I. (2014). Circus: A Traveling Life. ISBN 9788862083652.
  • Douglas McCulloh (2020). Facing Fire: Art, Wildfire, and the End of Nature in the New West Inlandia Institute, ISBN 978-1-7324032-9-1

References
  1. "About Us". PhotoAlliance. Retrieved 2015-08-30.
  2. "Roll up, roll up: the secret life of the circus in pictures". The Guardian: Art & Design. The Guardian. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  3. Partlow, Joshua. "The new face of the "carny": Mexicans from Veracruz state increasingly run U.S. carnivals". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  4. Greene, Graeme. "Social documentary photographer Norma I. Quintana on the lives, loves and struggles of an American circus". Curious Animal. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  5. Sieff, Kevin. "For Circus Chimera,the show won't go on". Valley Morning Star. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  6. Teicher, Jordan G. "What Happens When a Photographer Joins the Circus". Behold | The Photo Blog. Slate. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  7. Russell, Lauren. "Living under the big top". CNN Photos. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  8. "Roll up, roll up: the secret life of the circus – in pictures". The Guardian. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  9. "Past Tents: Beautiful Photos of an OldSchool OneRing Circus". Mother Jones. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
  10. "Best Images of 201425 of the best photos,paintings and illustrations that ran on Curious Animal this year". CuriousAnimal. Retrieved December 28, 2014.
  11. Pill, Steve (March 2015). "Off to join the Circus". B + W Magazine (174): 816.
  12. "What Happens When a Photographer Decides to Join the Circus". B&H Event Space. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  13. "A Photographer Turns the Lens on Her Own Home's Charred Remains". KQED Arts. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
  14. "Arts Council Napa Valley releases the Summer 2018 Community Fund Grant Recipients". Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  15. September 28, Sam Whiting; October 3, 2018 Updated; 2018; Pm, 12:36. "Photographer loses camera collection in fire — then takes pictures of it". Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide. Retrieved 2019-11-02.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. "Out of the ashes and into the fire". News. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
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