Deril Gonzales is among Santa Fe’s most hated men. He’s hoping his department’s latest collaboration brings with it a wave of good PR.

Like many artists before him, Shepard Fairey owes his success to a 7-foot-4 1980s pro wrestler.

“I can take any questions, just don’t ask me who the fathers of my children are,” a frank Annie Leibovitz tells a packed house at the Lensic during her recent visit to town.

Held every Sunday inside the Farmers Market Pavilion, the Railyard Artisan Market is the go-to place for cutesy aprons, rooster-emblazoned prayer flags and peacock feather “medicinal” fans.

An intoxicating scent of rose incense fills the air in Will Buckley’s ArtServices Gallery. The scent is fitting, given he’s busy installing his latest photography exhibit.

Leading the way into his home studio off Agua Fria Street, it’s clear that Grant Kosh marches to the beat of his own drum—or in this case ghetto blaster, complete with some vintage Cypress Hill tunes.

Leading the way to the living room of her Sunlit Hills home, Victoria Brown is positively giddy. “Here she is,” she says, like a proud mom opening her brag book. “She” is a newly minted art dispenser made from a repurposed 1950s cigarette vending machine, which Brown had delivered just two days prior.

It’s a nippy January morning and Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker, Jack of many trades, is standing by the Plaza obelisk giving away free hugs.

She’s accompanied by a man wielding a sign advertising the offer and another recording the events on an iPhone. “Free hugs, just for being alive!” the first one hollers at passersby.

Edie Tsong appears to be a little frantic as she spreads out 10-inch-tall cutout letters transported inside an SFR back issue. The clock is ticking, and she has less than two hours to use them to stencil a poem—using canned spray snow as a medium—in the street-facing windows of the Teen Court building.

Being an art and culture authority (in a city that lives and breathes it) is no easy task. Especially when my personal definition of art goes far beyond a painting hung on a perfectly lit wall, or a poignant poem slammed on a stage.