Sisters Antonia and Cherie Montoya are like a microcosm of creative self-employment. Antonia is the founder of Our Gratitude Collective, runs a wellness and gratitude coaching business, and has played music both solo and in various band projects for many years. Cherie is the owner of Farm & Table, a restaurant and farm in Albuquerque's bucolic North Valley that also serves as an unofficial center for a community passionate about locally grown food and artisan food-makers.

Both Antonia and Cherie are active in the local business community and regularly host or participate in events promoting both personal wellness and healthy local economies. We were thrilled to have them on the podcast to talk about all these interesting angles and connections between creativity, community, wellness, food, art, family and culture.

Host Peri Pakroo is joined by Pyragraph Contributing Editors Jeremy Kinter and Josh Stuyvesant. 

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed there's an awful lot of buzz around creative industries and entrepreneurship. As Director of Programs for the business accelerator Creative Startups, Roxanne Blair is squarely in the middle of this phenomenon. She joins us in the Pyragraph studio to talk about the best strategies for building creative industries, what kind of support artists need to build their ventures, and what Creative Startups offers growth-oriented creative firms.

Host Peri Pakroo is joined by Pyragraph Contributing Editor Josh Stuyvesant.

Comedy lovers in Albuquerque may know him as their favorite and funniest baby in diapers, but Rusty Rutherford has a few other acts up his sleeve. Besides doing stand-up comedy and organizing/hosting events like the Third Thursday Comedy Contest at Tractor Brewing, Rusty also recently founded Duke City Dream Lab, a photo, video, and recording studio created to help teens and artists of all ages channel their creative energies and learn new media skills.

We had a swell time chatting with Rusty in the Pyragraph studios about the comedy scene in Albuquerque, how twisted you really need to be to become a comedian, and what Duke City Dream Lab does for the community.

Host Peri Pakroo is joined by Pyragraph Contributing Editor Jeremy Kinter.

As a freelance graphic designer and principal of Design5sixty4, Lori Patton knows her way around design. In addition she is President of AIGA New Mexico, the professional association for designers in the state, so Lori has excellent insight into what it takes to make it in the saturated design industry. She joins us in the Pyragraph studio to talk about getting started in graphic design, getting and keeping clients, dealing with software and technology, the burgeoning creative economy in New Mexico and a whole lot more.

Host Peri Pakroo is joined by Pyragraph Contributing Editors Josh Stuyvesant and Jeremy Kinter.