'Art House' founder's new nest

Gift gallery aims to support local artists

By LOUISA HUFSTADER
Register Correspondent

As Napa’s art scene continues to heat up, the latest stop on the county’s arts and crafts itinerary is Nest at 1019 Atlas Peak Road.

A roomy, whitewashed space just behind Jessel Gallery, Nest offers affordable artworks and gifts — and donates 20 percent of its profits to a fund that will provide grants to Napa Valley artists and arts education programs.

“We would like to inspire people to live creatively and then give generously,” said photographer Norma Quintana, who co-founded Nest with fellow Napan Ann Trinca. “That’s really our motto.”

Quintana, whose husband is Napa cardiologist Sergio Manubens, said Nest is more than a shop or gallery: She calls it an “art house.”

“The Nest is sort of an experience,” she explained. “I want people to walk in, and to be inspired and encouraged.”

Among the desirable objects for sale — most gathered by Quintana, and nearly all one-of-a-kind creations by Bay Area artists — are delicately filigreed medallions and earrings of laser-cut wood; vintage clutch-purses and evening bags; a set of porcelain napkin rings adorned with owls, and handmade boxes that chirp like crickets when they’re opened.

Hand-woven nests, perfect for hanging from the holiday tree or presenting a small gift, are available in three sizes, beginning at $5. Artisanal notecards and lavishly beaded jewelry are among other gifts for sale, many of which are made with recycled materials.

Folk-art aficionados will want to check out Tracy Fitzgerald’s wall works, made of colorfully painted sheet metal in the shape of playful dogs, curious ravens and fantastic fishes, from $80.

Every sale will help build up the “Nest Egg,” as Quintana and Trinca have dubbed the fund into which they’ll deposit 20 percent of the gallery’s profits.

Once the fund has grown, Nest will award grants to local artists through Arts Council Napa Valley.

“If we can help the Arts Council and we can help artists make money, it’s always a good thing,” said Trinca, a veteran arts administrator who has worked at the Arts Council, the di Rosa Preserve and Off the Preserve! on Main Street; before coming to Napa in 2001, she worked at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and SFMOMA in San Francisco.

The Nest founders are also considering grants to student artists and to local arts organizations that depend on fundraising to stay in business.

“Even the di Rosa — people think that they just have this bucket of money that they’re taking from, and they don’t,” Trinca said.

Nest Egg grants could fund art classes for children at the di Rosa Preserve, Nimbus Arts in St. Helena and other venues, she continued. She hopes to distribute grants twice a year.

‘See what’s happening’

Trinca said Nest is Napa’s answer to the small, independent galleries she visits every weekend around the Bay Area.

“They’re funky and they’re experimental; sometimes what they do doesn’t work, sometimes it does; but people just go to see what’s happening,” she said.

In that spirit, Trinca co-founded the feminist “zine” Pearl Necklace in 2004 as a sort of paper-based gallery, chock-full of contributions from local artists, writers and musicians; Quintana, whom she’d met through the Arts Council, was both a supporter and a contributor.

After seven quarterly issues, Trinca and her collaborators folded Pearl Necklace last year. She now works as a community arts specialist at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, but has remained an active member of the Napa arts and culture scene.

Nest came together quickly this fall, growing out of an artist’s flea market the two founders held in September to benefit an exhibition by young Chinese-American photographers mentored by Quintana.

“It was our first experience at putting out everyday objects and things that were resourcefully found and artistically selected,” Quintana said.

“The Nest started to form.”

Quintana and Trinca liked the space — a former garden center on the Jessel Gallery grounds — and landlady Jessel Miller was eager for a like-minded tenant to draw more visitors to the Atlas Peak Road property.

“She’s just been so generous and kind and welcoming, so we moved in,” Trinca said.

Miller is enjoying her new subtenants: “The female energy in this place is incredible,” she said as she bustled among the racks in her boutique.

Since opening its doors in November, Nest has hosted several lively events including a performance by neo-skiffle trio Five Cent Coffee, a holiday gift sale with artists selling their wares directly to shoppers, and a “knit-in” with new-wave knitting author Sabrina Gschwantner.

After Christmas, the partners will redecorate Nest for their next show, “Shanghai Chic.” During January and February, they’ll be showing and selling photographs and paintings of China.

“It’s an innovative idea,” said Fitzgerald. “I hope it works.”

“The place has to have a mission, it has to have a purpose,” she said. “We believe in recycling; we believe in giving back to the community.”

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