One year ago, artist Norma I. Quintana’s Napa home burned to the ground, taking with it nearly all of her personal possessions, including her art collection and all of her cameras. Armed only with her iPhone X, Quintana continued working, sifting through the ashes and documenting the charred remains of her home.

“I would dig literally for my memories,” Quintana told artnet News. Working through her own grief forced her to open new doors artistically—she had to shoot digitally, and in color, for the first time. But as she continued to work, “my world as a fine art photographer has opened to the digital world.” She ultimately made 100 photographs from the wreckage.

Those haunting images, beautiful in their destruction, are now the subject of a solo show, “Forage From Fire,” at San Francisco Camera Work (October 4–20, 2018). Quintana lost her home to the Atlas fire on October 8, the day that the fires first began. She and her family fled in the middle of the night as the flames bore down upon them, and were lucky to escape with their lives.

In some areas of California wine country, the flames were not fully contained until October 27. More than 210,000 acres burned in 250 separate fires, taking the lives of 44 people and causing $14.5 billion in damages. It was the greatest loss of human life due to wildfire since 1918.

Among the many people to reach out to Quintana in the aftermath of the fire was Heather Snider, executive director of SF Camerawork. The gallery is letting the artist keep 100 percent of the proceeds of print sales from the show.

The artist’s exhibition—the photos are also currently on view in two other area group shows—is just one of the many ways in which the Northern California community is commemorating the devastating October 2017 fires, and showing how the region and its artists have banded together to rebuild.

In the process, they also serve as a powerful testament to an artist’s drive to create. Many of those who lost almost everything used the few materials they had left to make new work