TRAVELING WITH THE CIRCUS: PHOTOGRAPHER NORMA QUINTANA RETURNS TO NVC TO TELL THE TALE.

BY REGISTER STAFF  08/27/2016 UPDATED 11/15/2019  original article

Norma I. Quintana was at a crossroad in her life, ready to launch her photography career, when she found a traveling one-ring circus performing at the Napa Town & Country Fairgrounds.

For the next 10 years, Quintana followed the American one-ring circus and, over time, developed trusting relationships.

The result is “Circus: A Traveling Life,” a book of rich, black-and-white portraits that “capture life behind the big top” through the lens of a medium-format Hasselblad camera and a photographic eye partly trained at Napa Valley College.

On Sept. 15, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center, the Napa resident will return to the college that helped catapult her photography career. She will deliver a talk via the “PhotoEye” lecture series hosted by the Napa Valley College Photography Department.

“I want the community and students to come — I’ve drawn hundreds to my lectures over the years — to get them thinking about the quality of community college,” said Quintana, who came to Napa in the late ‘80s with her cardiologist husband, Sergio M. Manubens.

A native of Cleveland, she left her Midwestern roots when her husband finished medical school and started an internship-residency at UCSF.

Quintana holds a master’s degree in social science administration. After working in “corporate America” for a number of years, she was ready for a change.

She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and attended workshops with such photography luminaries as Mary Ellen Mark, Graciela Iturbide and Shelby Lee Adams.

“I found myself wanting to redefine my life,” she recalls. “People would ask me, ‘What kind of art do you do?’ and I said ‘I’m not an artist,’ yet I found myself tapping into my creative nature. I was always passionate about fine art and documentary photography.

That’s when she discovered Napa Valley College.

“I consider myself a poster child for Napa Valley College. I was thrilled with the teaching expertise of the faculty and the limitless resources,” said Quintana.

“In the photography department, the darkroom was impeccable. It was a great place to learn and it was in my community. I took many classes with Ron Rogers and Ron Zak and began to learn the craft of photography.

“After we moved to Napa, I was ready to launch another career. I discovered a circus flier at a café in town where I met the owner. He was from Hugo, Oklahoma, and had always dreamed of having a circus. It was his first season at the Napa Fairgrounds.”

Over the next 10 years, Quintana followed the traveling circus, developing relationships and earning the trust of the performers.

“My work is in a documentary style that chronicles the lives and stories of the people of the American one-ring circus.”

Quintana credits the lessons she learned at Napa Valley College for the success of her career.

“You don’t have to go very far to really take advantage of the quality and the kinds of classes you want, let alone avoid the cost of another degree,” she said. “To my amazement and delight I found this incredible place in my own community where I really think I honed my craft.”

Quintana is working on her next book, “Forget-Me-Nots,” that will feature people in her own community, including a beekeeper, a doctor, Francis Ford Coppola, a fieldworker, a die-hard Democrat, a Trump supporter, an anti-abortion advocate and a pro-abortion rights supporter.

“I want to chronicle people — I don’t want you to forget.”