For Natalia Quinteros, Community College of Philadelphia was a beacon of discovery and the beginning of her roadmap to founding and running Philadelphia Small Works, a multipurpose art gallery space in Fishtown.

After graduating from Philadelphia High School for Girls in 2000, Natalia attended CCP and took classes in all kinds of disciplines: art history, geology and photography. After taking a liking to artistic design elements like composition and perspective, Natalia finally settled on our Architecture program, a great mix of her creativity and aptitude for precision.

“My dad is a contractor, so I was around a lot of construction growing up. It’s hard to explain, but it kind of just made sense at the time,” Natalia said about choosing the architecture program.

“In the same way that I was taking a lot of classes at CCP, I said, 'Let me just try architecture,’ and my first semester in that department...I loved it,” Natalia continued.

After graduating from CCP in 2010, Natalia attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned not only a bachelor’s degree in Architecture, but a master’s degree as well.

“It was really an excellent program,” said Natalia of CCP’s architecture program. “It’s intimidating to go from CCP to Penn for a variety of different reasons, but I felt super equipped to do that.”

After finishing her master’s, Natalia worked in architecture and urban planning in Philadelphia for about 10 years before she started to feel a bit uninspired by the real estate development design work she was doing. That’s when she noticed a job opportunity with the Philadelphia Museum of Art for an exhibition designer role. After five years designing spaces for the museum’s special exhibitions program, Natalia decided it was time for her to go her own way.

In 2023, Natalia founded and opened Philadelphia Small Works. She runs the gallery along with Damon Bain, principal artist, curator and fine arts instructor, and Heather Bowlan, literary director, events curator and press manager. While Natalia focuses on designing the space to enhance each exhibition, Damon is the visual artist who helps curate the works; and Heather tackles the creative writing aspects of their gallery experience, coordinating writing workshops and open mic nights, amongst other writing-focused activities.

Though it’s been over a decade since Natalia was a student at CCP, she still holds on to her art history books, referencing them when she’s designing gallery exhibitions and curating artwork. She’s also held on to friends from CCP.

Natalia said, “One of the friends I made that first semester in the architecture program at CCP was just here at the gallery two weeks ago doing a workshop with us.”

When she first set foot on campus, Natalia had no idea she’d one day be opening and running her very own art gallery. CCP gave Natalia the space to explore her interests and find out what she really wanted to do academically and professionally. And given the chance, Natalia said she would not change a single thing about the pathway that got her there.