Typewriter

Norma I. Quintana, American

Typewriter, 2017

This image depicts a remnant of artist Norma I. Quintana’s burned typewriter in the aftermath of the wildfire that destroyed her Napa home. The deadly fires, making idyllic wine country into hell on earth, left dozens of artists throughout the region without their studios, materials, or archives. As a consequence, many artists were forced to adopt new processes and mediums; in digging for her memories, Quintana had to shoot digitally and in color for the first time. The content itself of the photo is a counterpart to this forced adjustment to a newer and more accessible technology—if not of less dimension; the antiquated typewriter bears no hope of itself producing ever again. Quintana’s response is one of many adaptations of medium as well as repurposings of destroyed property and the ashes as evidence of disaster. Label by Hannah London

Forage from Fire #21

Norma I. Quintana, Puerto Rican-American

Forage from Fire #21, 2017

This is an image taken from Quintana’s exhibition Facing Fire: Art, Wildfire, and the End of Nature in the New West. It shows a charred heart-shaped shell that was found in the wreckage of her home and studio days after the Atlas fire roared through her neighborhood. Quintana places a number of ordinary household items (such as pendants, ornaments, kitchen utensils, and frames) onto the plastic fire clean-up glove to convey the “persistence of memory” and personal resilience after such a devastating and destructive event. In her simple-yet-stunning photograph, Quintana is able to put trauma and loss into literal perspective, juxtaposing damaged remnants of her belongings with the restorative hand of human agency. Label by Tara Vasanth