When the Atlas Fire overtook photographer Norma Quintana's home in the Napa Valley a year ago this month, she was dusting off a backdrop for her Forget Me Not series, portraits of the valley through people who inhabit it or have close ties to the area: A migrant worker, a military officer, a centenarian, and a young hula dancer are among her subjects.

When the fire hit, all of Quintana's framed exhibition prints, her art books (both her own work and her library of photographic books), and her work in progress for the new series were gone in a matter of minutes, destroyed along with the studio itself, the space she'd worked in for 28 years, her artistic home. She also lost her beloved Hasselblad camera, with which she shot all of her black-and-white work.

Luckily, Quintana and her family had insurance that covered some of their property losses. Others in their community were not so fortunate. But what about the emotional and spiritual distress the fire created? Quintana says that her questions shifted, almost immediately, from artistic musings to questions of survival. She asked herself, "What does one do after losing everything?" From day one, Quintana found support in her neighbors and friends. Her attention turned toward the practical. She had to find temporary housing for herself, her husband and her youngest daughter. But as an artist, she also gravitated toward documentation.

The obvious tool was the only camera she had left, her iPhone X. Both color and digital format were strange to Quintana, as all her previous work had been in black-and-white analog format. But she says, "I latched onto this new possibility like a lifeline." And she began shooting photos of artifacts salvaged from the ruin of her studio.

As she began to build a body of work, she starting posting these moving images on Instagram, calling the series Forage From Fire. "When people say to me that they can’t imagine what we've been through," Quintana says, "they're right. They can’t. It has shaken me to my core to know just how close we came to losing our lives. But I've also learned that, while I made art and collected beautiful objects, these things did not define me."

While the foraging was often painful, Quintana observes that, "Discovering is such a natural part of my 'third eye.' I immediately started to look beyond the rubble. I must say I was in shock for the first couple of weeks, but photography became my coping mechanism."

Her new series of iPhone images, now printed in 11x14 and 16x20 formats, has reinvigorated her imagination, and has begun to heal her spirit.

Quintana's manifesto that "art saves lives" has helped her negotiate the trauma of loss. The act of sifting through and photographing the echoes of her possessions brought meaning to an otherwise horrible life event. Quintana's loss was rooted in home, where most people have a sense of security.

The rubber gloves that serve as backdrop to these images were given to her, along with respirator masks, before she returned to her homesite.

What does Quintana want viewers to take from the show? She says, "I want them to know that the artifacts I foraged tell stories. They were not just things or possessions, but also reflected a life celebrated and well-lived."

Of the series as a whole, Quintana says, "Our possessions are given temporary clemency in our homes, but endure by our collective  memories."  Forage From Fire has reinvigorated her imagination, and has begun to heal her spirit. The show opens on October 4th at SF Camerawork, with an opening reception from 6-8pm.