Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 was a day local author, activist and photographer Lisa Law will never forget. “It was just…amazing," she says.

“I was not expected to grow up to be a biologist. I was supposed to study Home Ec. and marry a doctor. My mom is still not quite over it…you’d think she would be,” Linda Wiener says.

“Maybe it’s like a calling,” Tim Foster says. He’s talking about a need to create and sell 100 handmade meditation pillows, a project he recently launched on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter with the intention of attracting more people to the Zen-like practice.

He’s not necessarily what you’d call a looker. He’s scrawny, big-mouthed, feeble and bug-eyed. Then there’s the hair…don’t even get me started on the hair.

A woman of contrasts, she’s dressed in a delicate black slip paired with army boots; possesses both supermodel looks and Diego Rivera technique; and, though soft-spoken, creates artwork that speaks volumes. 

Sixty-two-year-old Josie Lucero is used to the almost nonexistent foot traffic at Emmanuel’s, her Cerrillos Road frame shop. “Oh God, it’s gone down,” she says of the current state of the framing industry. “The economy is terrible, if this was my only income…forget about it.”

A young, dreadlocked woman sits on the floor by the caged outdoor hockey rink at Herb Martinez Park. Though she just suffered an elbow fracture, she didn’t miss her weekly practice. Seemingly unscathed, she starts unpacking her protective equipment, the sun glistening on her impressive RoboCop-approved high-tech brace—the name of which escapes her.

Manning the sleepy desk at the Plaza Galeria space where her first solo show, Innercapes hangs, Sarah Nolan is used to low foot traffic. “It’s mostly tourists and sandwich lovers,” she says, referencing the nearby Subway.

Continuing the lo-fi aesthetic of their latest exhibit, CutGlueFold, Axle Contemporary presents The Flatfile Show­, a paper-driven curatorial experiment that shines a spotlight on the most basic of mediums.

According to SWAIA Executive Director Bruce Bernstein who took to the Plaza's Buffalo Thunder stage on Sunday afternoon, the event cost $1.5M to stage, and generates a collected income of $18M—or 12% of the City Different's annual revenue.