Welcome to The Truth in Us Art. I am your host, Rob Lee. And today, I am super privileged to welcome fellow Baltimorean, fellow glasses wearer, you know, filmmaker, conceptual artist, cultural worker, originally from West Baltimore, please welcome Nia Hampton. Welcome to the podcast.
Nia Hampton:Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.
Rob Lee:Thank you. And, as I touched on in the intro, thank you for wearing your glasses. I always point out the fellow bespectacled individuals, you know. They used to give us a little, you know, a little shade. Yours are much more fashionable than mine.
Nia Hampton:These are new. I'm so excited. These have really changed my whole I'm like, wow. I'm fine, Like, it's a, it's a website called z Zelo, I believe. Yeah.
Nia Hampton:Like, I got 2 pairs for, like, a $150, and my regular eye doctor was trying to charge me $300 for just one pair. So
Rob Lee:Here here's the thing. I I I feel like I feel like I have 3 pairs of glasses that I wear. My eyes have gotten a lot better. And I think it's just as my my partner says to me, She was like, when you take your glasses off, your eyes disappear. And I was like, this is offensive.
Rob Lee:But I have 3 pairs of glasses, and I have one that's kinda circular. And I was like, I wear those to openings. So I go to galleries so I could look like I'm part of the scene. I wear these when it's business time, and the other ones are, like, my regular I'm just a regular dude kinda glasses. So, yeah, business time.
Nia Hampton:Yeah. No. Glasses are on trend again, but I think that's because everyone post COVID, we're all a lot less healthy. And so there are certain I'm serious. There are certain, like, disability markers that are just gonna become cool
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Nia Hampton:Because it's gonna be so one, it's a marker that you can get assistance for this disability. Because technically, wearing the glasses is is disability. Like, if if for whatever reason, the things that people who go through with diabetes, if that was to affect folks who wear glasses Mhmm. Society would collapse. So I think in the next, like, decade or so, it's gonna be cooler to see, like, you'll see fashionable canes and, like, all of these kinda, like, things that were, like, oh, what is this?
Nia Hampton:It's gonna be I'm serious. I see it.
Rob Lee:No. I hear you. And, you know, I've seen a few a few more people, like, paying attention in those areas, because it's like you had time to you know, 2020 and all. You had sort of time to take a moment and kinda reset and really look at, like, oh, I should be concerned about my health. I should be looking into these things.
Rob Lee:And, you know, some people going on that sort of weight loss journey, some people waiting a little later, and and all of these sort of different things that make up sort of what we were numb to for a very, very long time.
Nia Hampton:Mhmm.
Rob Lee:That's my thinking. But as as we we get started, as we sort of open it up, I gave the the cut and paste, you know, sort of introduction. So I wanna give you the space to introduce yourself in your own words, and I think it's a lot of power in that. You know, we we have those artist statements. We have those bios.
Rob Lee:And a lot of times, it's just like, oh, okay. This is cool or this might not really reflect who the person is. It's like who the work what the work is, but not necessarily who the person is. So I'm gonna give you a space to introduce yourself.
Nia Hampton:You know, I'm in my I'm ending my 1st year of, MFA program at UMBC into media and digital arts, and we write artist statements every semester. And artist statements are almost like dating profiles or, you know, or the bios of your social media. It's, like, actually so hard to write about who you are, specifically as an artist, because you're always I mean, maybe you're always changing or maybe you're always discovering. So that's my preface for this attempt. I think some lines from my more recent artist statements included things like, I am a conceptual artist who makes meaning out of familiar mistakes and misremembrance.
Nia Hampton:I use media as a ruse to have an interaction. And I think as I age, I'm becoming a lot more mischievous in my practice, because I take interestingly enough, I take myself more seriously, but that gives space for me to enjoy whatever it is that I'm doing. So, yeah, like, that's me. I'm a conceptual artist, and I do a whole bunch of stuff.
Rob Lee:Thank you. Thank you. I like I like the I like the pursuit for, like, in that balance between, like, being serious and taking what you do serious, but also being able to have a little mischief. Like, that's what I what I do in this, you know. Like, I like to watch how sweat, you creative artist types.
Rob Lee:When it gets down to, like, the rapid fire questions, I don't give those to you guys just to see like, oh, okay. Yeah, uh-huh, that that aesthetic of I know my work. It's like, yeah, cool. What about this stuff? What about your favorite movie, though?
Rob Lee:Though? Mhmm. So in in thinking of sort of memory, right, I wanna go back a little bit to just a fun or impactful memory of your your childhood, like, you know, your fellow Baltimorean, and I think a lot of our creative, like, inklings kinda start when we're young. And I I discovered that in doing this podcast for myself, and I was like, no. That didn't count.
Rob Lee:And then someone was like, you should really look at that and examine that. So I pass the question to you.
Nia Hampton:I have 2 because, you know, I've had COVID twice now, and so my memory is something that I am aware of because it's not as mal well, that's not the real it's just not what it used to be. And so I find myself being like, did that happen? Am I making that up? But these specific memories, I feel very confident in in the fact that they are real because I've made art about them, and I've told the story over and over and over. So the first memory is the time when my mother was about to audition for the Universal Circus.
Nia Hampton:And that became family lore. It became an inside joke. It became my thesis film in undergrad. It is a film I recently, made, and I'm raising funds for right now. Like, it is the premise for an entire, storytelling universe.
Nia Hampton:It's a way to talk about my familiar dynamic without necessarily talking about my familiar dynamic. A second memory I have is of a Murphy bed in my dad's trailer park when he was living in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And I just thought a trailer park was so cool. Like, you know, when you're a kid, anything your parents do, you know, to a certain to a certain extent and at a certain age.
Rob Lee:Yeah. They're, like,
Nia Hampton:the coolest things in the world. And I just he had a Murphy bed in a trailer park, and the trailer park was Gettysburg. And my dad is, like, from the Bronx. You know, like, he's a very cool guy. So, like, him being in Gettysburg, like, literal colonial Gettysburg, trailer park, Pennsylvania like, I think Western Pennsylvania, That was just such a striking, like I don't know if I've ever spent time in a trailer park since, but it definitely made me fond of a certain working class aesthetic.
Nia Hampton:Not that that's not my actual reality, but being from Baltimore, I don't know that anyone is associating trailer parks with Baltimore. So those are my 2 core memories.
Rob Lee:Thank you. So, you know, as as you went back through in your, you know, talk you touched on your your current artist statement. Right? As it and I'm a had to start doing that practice. Like, I'm gonna start changing minds every quarter or something as far as what this is because at one point, it had democratized, and I was like, I don't even use that word.
Rob Lee:But, but it sounds cool. As far as your work goes, what is your your why? Like, when did you arrive to, you know, you're interested in doing this. You're pursuing this as a a calling, as a vocation. What was the why there?
Nia Hampton:So I was, I am I'll I'll wait. I was born into this. You know? My friend called me a nepho baby, and I'm just like, I mean, I guess. We're poor, but sure.
Nia Hampton:Why not? And I've read that black people's cultural well, I've heard that black people's inheritance is culture. You know, like, we unfortunately don't get to inherit, like, the funds, but we inherit the things that make a culture, the skills, the taste, the whatever. And I was just I happened to be lucky enough to be born into a very artistic family, specifically my mother who got to be an artist, and she fought for that, you know, and it's it's just been a journey to watch. I think it wasn't necessarily my calling as much as it was me being a good eldest daughter and wanting to spend time with my mom and, like, this is what she does for fun, so it becomes fun.
Nia Hampton:And subsequently, I became known as a certain type of way, and I'm like, this is just what my, you know, this is what my mother do. This is what we do with my family. This is how we bond. It wasn't until I left Baltimore, after graduating from UMBC. I went to school for media and communications, because I just that just felt feasible, and practical, but still kind of close to storytelling.
Nia Hampton:I moved to Brazil, and I was trying to, like, teach English, and I dyed my hand purple, and I got fired from this job that was gonna, like, help me get my visa, and I was just like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, and, suddenly my writing started, like, taking off.
Rob Lee:I
Nia Hampton:had always been paid as an artist, but, you know, it's relative. Like, if you're an artist outside of a major city in a major industry, it's kind of like, You know, you really like doing it for yourself. But living in Brazil and kind of being in a community of, like, black queer filmmakers who, like, had their own stuff, they were just coming together and showing stuff. And I had never thought that, like, it could be that easy. I'm like, oh, if y'all are doing this, I can do this.
Nia Hampton:So I think spending time abroad in Brazil, Salvador back here in Brazil, is where I learned that everything that I was doing while I was influenced by my family and made possible by my family, I started to kind of say what I wanted to say in my specific way, because I had fought it. Like, I really like, I was you know, I was just gonna be an English teacher, chill, date other artists, support their work. I don't know that I was thinking like, Oh, okay, this is what I want to do. This is what it's gonna look like. But that was where it started to pay to, like, be myself in that way, in a major way.
Nia Hampton:I mean, again, I've I've gotten paid before, but it would be Like, my first job was an extra on a wire in that scrape.
Rob Lee:-Nice.
Nia Hampton:-Which was it was cool, right? But then, like, the wire leaves, and we don't have an industry here. So I'm learning, like, as an artist, like, it matters that you're good, but if you want to be able to stay good, you have to find a way to, like, pay for your life with what you're doing.
Rob Lee:Yeah. Thank you. Because, you know, I I got a piece of advice before moving to this next question. I got a piece of advice. You know, I have conversations with people, especially like, you know, outside of like the pocket.
Rob Lee:I have conversations outside of the context of the podcast, just like sort of the real post, you know, conversation conversation, the sort of real, real conversation. And, you know, it's just one of these moments of getting, like, some feedback, You know, like, and I'm doing this, and as you were touching on sort of major market, major industry and sort of thinking about that, and I'm doing the education thing in podcasting, so I'm revisiting some of these these different elements. I'm like, alright. I'm getting this. I'm hearing, oh, you know, this is important.
Rob Lee:I'm glad you're doing this and so on. But then this thing that has value and so on, storytelling and all of that, you know, it's just like I don't quite see it. And it's not like, you know, when people say, hey. You know, we just discovered you. It's like, I've been around for 15 years,
Nia Hampton:you know,
Rob Lee:overnight success. Right? Yeah. And trying to figure it out, and I was just, like, got some sort of feedback of just continue being you. You're the only you.
Rob Lee:And I got that from someone who's, you know, done in been abroad and all of this different stuff and has done a lot of different interesting work, And it's just, like, that's the thing that sets you aside. You know, you're doing this. You you whether it be from who you're talking to, how you talk to them, and just the stories that you find interesting, that's the thing that sets you aside from everything else. And when I get those conversations, it's definitely, you know, a reminder. This one was the most recent one, and, you know, it helps to hear that, especially, you know, you think, I was thinking about it recently.
Rob Lee:Man, I'm gonna live this boring life and keep this data job that I have, you know, IT job, and, you know, maybe I'll write something here and there. Maybe I'll, you know, talk about my favorite movies in a podcast, but doing this, I think, is important to me and just, like, kinda falling back in love with that that why.
Nia Hampton:Mhmm. I mean, it I mean, art is so much more than, like, a job. It's and that's why I'm an artist and not a creative. Because a creative is a person who gets to do creative things for, like, a living as a job. But an artist is a way of life and an artist is not an artist.
Nia Hampton:Or an artist doesn't stop being an artist because they're not productive or because they're not wealthy. Like, it is just the way of life. There are people whose work you have never seen, but you're
Rob Lee:you know they are artists just from the way that they move
Nia Hampton:and the way that they, you know and I've just been able to, like, kind of see a lot of different ways to be an artist. You know, I've seen more successful people, and I've seen less successful people, and it I just I don't know that the good and bad are like, Oh, they're good artists. They're bad artists. That is just so irrelevant. It's like, Are you still practicing?
Nia Hampton:Do you have a craft? Do you have a relationship to your practice? What does it do for you? What are you learning about yourself? Like, when you come at it from that way, it's like you can't really you can't lose, you know?
Nia Hampton:It's helped me just live a beautiful life. Like, having an art practice just makes me happy, really. I'm learning in real time all of the other things that comes with, like, just navigating, like, a capitalist society. But, like, I'm an artist, whether I'm drawing or painting or taking pictures or dancing. Like, I'm just you know, I'm a person trying to articulate and express my sp experience earnestly, not necessarily to be seen or to be wiped, but, like, just because if I don't do it, I don't know what's gonna happen.
Rob Lee:I thank you. It and that's a good point. It's a good way to kinda go into this this next question that I have. You know, do you have, like, role models is what I'm gonna use for lack of a better term because I'm not feeling particularly articulate in this question, but, you know, creative artistic, like, role models, writers, artists, filmmakers, what have you. Is there 1 or or or 2 that come to mind?
Rob Lee:And what do you admire about them?
Nia Hampton:I mean, there's so many. I, right now, or maybe even, like, the past 5 years, the person that has really made me think differently about what it is that I wanna do, is Saida Hartman. And I don't know that folks would, like, consider her a traditional artist as much as she's, like, a scholar, but if you read her book or her work, her, critical fabulation is a methodology in which she'll take ordinary or found historical documents about black people, women, marginalized folks, and, like, fill in the blanks. And her writing is gorgeous. Like, I'm not really a a text heavy, scholarly person.
Nia Hampton:I love fiction, and I love to really, like, get lost in work, but she's writing about things that really happened with a voice that is so just artful, you know? And it's it's this weird blurred line. Like, if it's real, it is fiction. But it's like, does it matter? You know?
Nia Hampton:And so a lot of the work that I'm doing specifically right now, I'm really interested in my own lived experience. So, you know, obviously, my mother is a big, source of inspiration for me, but she's also a muse. I'm also, like, literally going through her life and pulling out moments, our lives together, really, and and speculizing them or fictionizing them or exaggerating them or minimizing them and just, like, playing with my old memories. I'm excited about my friends right now. I, have a friend.
Nia Hampton:Her name is Jade Flower Foster, and she's a phenomenal poet and a dope filmmaker and a screenwriter. Who else am I really thinking about? I'm always a fan of Octavia Butler. Like, I'm a speculative fiction girl. A lot of the folks that I've met at the Voices of Our Nation's Art speculative fiction in 2017, those people are still some of my favorite writers.
Nia Hampton:My friend Joseph Errol Thomas just published his second book or third book, and he just, he's just so honest. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes. Like, he's you know, Black people, I think, in this country, at some point, we have to farm our family for trauma. Like, I'm watching my peers, and at some point, everybody's like, alright. It's time to, you know, point the camera on myself, and thus, my family.
Nia Hampton:And the things that we decide to share is like is like a landmine. You know? Like, you share the wrong thing, and that's the end of a relationship. Or you share the right thing, and you get rich. And it's like, you know, you can't ever really gauge what's appropriate.
Nia Hampton:You kinda have to make those decisions for yourself. And so the the honesty that his first book took, I really feel, but I always, like, I'm always conflicted on just, like, why did you have to do this? You know? Like, why did you have to share so much of what happened? But I'm grateful he did it.
Nia Hampton:I'm inspired. And in my own work, I'm like, okay, if I'm
Rob Lee:a do this, what do I
Nia Hampton:want people to feel, and how do I go about this? But, yeah, literally, so many people that I know in real life that are just human beings who have found the will to keep making work, those are my, like, inspirations.
Rob Lee:Love it. So I wanna go into these, like, next two questions, and I have, like, the latter third of the pod sort of reserved for sort of the major topic, you know, if you will. Let's talk about black fem black femme supremacy film festival. Let's talk about that a little bit. Sort of, what was the inspiration behind it and, like, how has it contributed to, changed, added to, sort of, the local, like, black film or local film perspective in Baltimore?
Nia Hampton:So black film supremacy was founded in 2018 and fueled by,
Rob Lee:revenge.
Nia Hampton:Like, I, all I had was revenge and a curator who wanted more events on the weekends of my first art show and a timeline full of other black femme filmmakers who did not have, like, a pathway to a traditional festival experience. And before then, I had been, I had gone to the Black Star Film Festival. Like, I saw it become, and I was like, wow. This is amazing. And at the same time, I was volunteering at the Maryland Film Festival.
Nia Hampton:And I just I just I observed how happy I was to be at a film festival. Like, I was just festival time. I'm happy. I'm volunteering. I'm standing.
Nia Hampton:I'm doing all the work, but I'm enjoying it. And that's why I'm like, okay. Yeah. I love this stuff. I wanna make films, and this seems like the place to kinda figure out how to do that.
Nia Hampton:So in that spring of 2018, I had my show up, but I was also trying to get, like, in the festival world, you get, like, little 2.50 an hour or 2.50 for the weekend jobs where you just they work you to death, but it's great because you get to, like, meet filmmakers and you get to see the work and da da da da da. And I wanted to be, like, a volunteer coordinator or something, you know, that I was also qualified to do, quite frankly. And I interviewed at Maryland Film Festival, and they were, like, drooling over me and just, Oh, my God, you're so great. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. And you know I didn't get that job.
Nia Hampton:So Right.
Rob Lee:And I
Nia Hampton:was just like, wait a minute. You know? What what's going on? And I was just like, you know, I'm a do my own thing. You know, I already have a upstairs room in Weilau Gallery.
Nia Hampton:My curator, Joy Davis, I was her first artist that she used in that space. And she was like, Yeah, let's get some people in here for more things. And I'm like, What else could I and she was like, And let's charge people. I'm like, Woah, what can I charge people for that's not already in the gallery? And I said, oh, festivals, because I had been dabbling, like, I would be coming a little program on the low.
Nia Hampton:I'm good for a recommendation. And I'm an eldest, I'm a eldest daughter, so I know how to tell people what to do, you know, like, in a group setting. So it just happened. I made a Google form asking for films and volunteers, and I got my best friend, who I met in UMBC, my creative partner, Maya Rodriguez, she made some stuff for me. We got some flyers out, and then I had 2 people reach out to be volunteers, Hilda Denejay and Smiley, and they have been just life changing.
Nia Hampton:It's just funny, like, the Internet, really. Like, honestly, it was the Internet that created this festival because it was so many people who felt the same way as me. You know, it's 2018. That was, that was an interesting time. We were all like, where's our thing?
Nia Hampton:We want our stuff. And, we made some stuff, and it was just it just continued for a long time, and it was a good time. And that's what a festival is about. A festival should feel like a reunion. A festival is just a bunch of people getting together to, like, enjoy the same things.
Nia Hampton:And in the film world, as a black woman, you know, as you go out into it and get more into it, you're like, oh, wow, like, we are so it's not that many of us. Right. But because it's not that many of us, we tend to be more accessible, you know? Like, this festival, I've developed relationships with folks like Felicia Fry, who is a filmmaker and director, screenwriter from Baltimore. Super just down to earth and, like, amazing.
Nia Hampton:There's there's so many things. You know, like, these people who are just running and doing it, but also they they know what it took for them to get there.
Rob Lee:And I
Nia Hampton:think they understand legacy, and so they're just like and I will say this has been interesting. So, like, the people who are generous even in their, like, fame or bigness of their careers, have kind of always been that way. Like, Newman Perrier, who made Black and Sexy TV, film director, she recently donated to my festival I mean, I'm sorry, to my crowdfunding campaign, but she agreed to come to the festival when we headed it at the parkway in 2019. That's a whole episode how we got to the parkway after, like, all of that. But in 2019, when we ended up hosting the festival at the Parkway, she was our opening night feature, and she came in and had a conversation with us and just you know?
Nia Hampton:Because, like, filmmakers want to watch people watching their things. Right. And she's continued to be just you could just you just know when people look for the culture. You know when people are doing things to benefit themselves, and you know when people have a larger scope, like, this isn't about me. I'm one person in a long lineage of folks trying to do this particular art form.
Nia Hampton:And that's what has been my favorite part of this festival. It tends to attract people who are for the culture or the legacy of what it means to be a Black femme trying to make films.
Rob Lee:Thank you. That's that's that's great. And, each of the the festivals that you've mentioned I've worked with, I had a really old experience working with Blackstar. I think last year I worked with the founder. I did interview the founder and 2 filmmakers, and both of their films were world premieres.
Rob Lee:So I was like, what are those interviews? And I was like, yo, this is a responsibility. I can't mess this up. And then, you know, just
Nia Hampton:Yeah. I love Mamrie.
Rob Lee:Yes. And and they were very interesting films. And, yeah. And even, you know, it was at that sort of point where, I think in a month, I did interviews for 2 I think 2 or 3 film festivals and 3, 3 I think 3 or 4 filmmakers that these were all world premieres. I'm like, okay, somebody must be talking, you know, which is great.
Rob Lee:Mhmm.
Nia Hampton:So I
Rob Lee:want to move into this sort of next question about, you know, projects. Like, you know, you touched on the programming piece there a little bit, and I see in your background, I see you know, Ballet After Dark, I see Not About A Riot. What sparks your interest in a project? Like, is it the challenge? Is it learning opportunity collaborators?
Rob Lee:Is it something else? Like, what really says, alright, I need to do this. This makes sense. I would love to work for this person. I would love to work on this project.
Nia Hampton:That's something I'm still figuring out. I think, like, if we're talking specifically, like, like, the collaborative aspect of a film
Rob Lee:Sure.
Nia Hampton:What I've learned in filmmaking because I'm not actually I'm more of a video artist. Like, a traditional film, I'm still kinda cutting my teeth in. The film that I just shot this past March is the first time that I that I've had a traditional set budget. People come in. When I shot my mother playing an undergrad, I did all of it by myself.
Nia Hampton:Held the camera. The the sound was terrible. Added it myself. You know, like and I'm like, oh, I'm never doing that again. And so but before this, I got the chance to be on B Monet's, set as her art director, which is Ballet After Dark.
Nia Hampton:My friend Jolan James, who also graduated from UMBC, they used my house for his location, and so I got to kind of get a very sparse, you know, maybe every 6 months, I'm on someone set for a day or 2, situation where I got to just experience and see. And and the thing about a film set is it's its own universe. It's a culture, and it's a vibe. You know, like, you have to create the type of environment that you want people to show up and do the thing that you're asking them to do. So if I'm deciding to work with a person, it really depends on, like, the way that a person is asking me.
Nia Hampton:A writers' room is similar. It's a culture, but it's not physical. So we're sitting around talking and sharing ideas and, you know, saying this works or this doesn't work, as a group or with another person, depending on what you're writing. And then the actual filmmaking, even, like, working with the DP, like, this this, time around, I'm working with my cousin. And so, you know, because he's my cousin, there are some things that I'm just like, some of this we're just gonna do.
Nia Hampton:And before we worked on this, he would also I would creative direct with him a lot, so we already had a bit of a chemistry. But I'm like, okay, you're my cousin, but also I needed to look like this. You know, like, I need you to, like I don't need this. I need that. Like, it's just it's a very intimate and unique relationship making art with a with a person.
Nia Hampton:And then in a film setting, it's like a group of people.
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Nia Hampton:Like, you know, you gotta like your gaffer. You gotta like and not only do you, like, have to like that. You don't even necessarily have to like people as much as you need to, but, like, respect their what they're doing. And I'm the type of person that when I when I decide to work with you, I I'm very, like, I wanna be hands off. I wanna be able to trust that you're gonna show up and turn it into whatever it is that I'm choosing you to bring, because I'm choosing you because I I like what you do anyway.
Nia Hampton:I want what you got. I don't wanna have to, like, stand over your shoulder and keep asking about it. And so it's levels. I'm I'm also learning that I like people who are organized. I like people that are dependable, who are going to show up and do what they say they wanna do without too much other things going on.
Nia Hampton:As a very emotional process based artist myself, I definitely understand how much is required to even show up in the first place. But film sets are about, like, time and money, you know? Like, you literally you lose money and you lose time, and
Rob Lee:you won't be able to make the full vision what you want
Nia Hampton:it to be if if everybody don't know they shit. So it's still a little early for me. I think with Not About a Riot, I came onto a project that was already shot.
Rob Lee:-Sure.
Nia Hampton:-And so I kind of had to act as a doula for Malaika, just like I was the one, like, Hey, this is important. I I think you should do something about this, and it turned into, like, older sister bullying. You know, like, it was very much like I at some sometimes I felt like I cared about it more than her, which isn't true, but and now that I'm, like, the the director, it's like, there's a level of vulnerability that if you don't have people to kinda talk you off the ledge, you can, like, sabotage the process. And so being a coproducer or a postproduction producer, I'm almost like a stepfather. I'm coming in.
Nia Hampton:We already got this thing. Let's get it where it needs to go, and I can kinda walk away. Whereas as a director and I was thinking about this this morning because, like, as a director who is not necessarily trying to be a DP, I'm always looking for people to work with, And the DP is the person who brings your idea to, like, life, and it's usually, like, a male thing. Like, it's usually men holding the cameras, but I feel like the DP role is very feminine. It's almost like the woman, like the carrier now.
Nia Hampton:And as a director, it almost feels a little bit more masculine because I'm kinda telling you. You know? Anyway, that's just, like, a thought I randomly had. But, yeah, looking looking, and trying to assemble a group of folks to be like, hey, come spend, like, 72 consecutive hours with me in the woods doing weird stuff.
Rob Lee:You know,
Nia Hampton:like, I mean, seriously, depending on what the movie is. You know? So you really do have to kinda have an under you don't have to know everything about these people, but you gotta trust them, and you gotta, like, like whatever it is that you're asking them to bring. And that has been, that's new for me. It's not it's not totally foreign because in my festival work, we do that, right?
Nia Hampton:Like, my digital media person is doing her job. My graphic designer is doing her job, and we all come together. We have our conversations. We go watch several weeks. Every, you know, summer, we know we're gonna come together and do our thing.
Nia Hampton:So it's, it's been a bit of a crossover, but I think because I'm working with new people for the most part, it's been like, oh, this is all about relations. Like, I I have to learn how to talk to people. I have to learn how to discern who's actually here for me or, like, who just wants to be you know, like, it's it's a lot of relational work that I don't I'm like, is there a class for this? You know, like, in in school, they oh, you know, the pictures and this and that, but the actual pulling the shit off, that's interpersonal soft skill.
Rob Lee:Yeah. It's it's execution. I I encountered that with this. Like, you know, 5 years in doing it, I used to be very in the whole thing, you know, exchanging every email. Now it's as simple as, yo, here's the link, here's all the stuff that I need from you, bing bang boom, versus, you know, which frees me up that I'm not having to hold someone's hand of please do the interview with me.
Rob Lee:It's just like, if you wanna do it, cool.
Nia Hampton:I mean, it's very it's very like dating. You know? It's like if I if if I after a while, you're going you're going to see that person, like, playing with you. You know? It's like, oh, you don't actually wanna make this.
Nia Hampton:You just wanna talk about making this.
Rob Lee:Yeah. I mean
Nia Hampton:Or you do do wanna make this, but, like, I need you to, like, slow down. You know? Like, it's it's a very intimate dance making anything with other people.
Rob Lee:100%. And this is all new to me as I touched on, like, new ish in that, you know, 2 thirds of my time being a podcaster and doing doing this sort of thing was insular, was my own group of friends. I already knew what their strengths are, kinda as you were you were touching on. I know what I can get from you. This is what you do.
Rob Lee:These are your habits. Mhmm. Whereas, and I've always described this podcast as blind dating with artists. And Mhmm. You know, you get on there, you're not sure, and there's a habit where folks who get on don't give me any context.
Rob Lee:Their artist statement is different. They're they don't have any talking points or anything they really wanna discuss. And, you know, as we talked a little bit before getting started, some people just want the opportunity to chat, which is great, but I I can't just improv the whole thing. So it's like trying to figure out what that balance is. Then there are some folks, not a lot, but it's a percentage enough that they'll grab a slot and then don't show up.
Rob Lee:And I put in an hour to 2 hours worth of research, so I don't get that time. Right. Oh, man. It's sort of sort of that thing in in preparation because, you know, as you were saying earlier, you know, you like people who are structured. You like people who have, like, their their stuff in order.
Rob Lee:I try to at least do my side of it and when folks such as yourself, guests come on and they make my job easier, I look like I'm more talented. I'm actually, you know, just like here, just kinda I mean,
Nia Hampton:you you need other people to make you look good. Again, it's just like I it's so funny. I've always been very introverted, and I've always kind of questioned if I was good with people. And I think this is because I'm comparing myself to my family, and I come from a very, like, jovial family full of characters. I'm, like, the least funniest person in my family.
Nia Hampton:And then I'll meet people, and they're like, oh my god. You're hilarious. And I'm like, what? Like but it it's like, oh, okay. These people I think because I relate I relate to people how I relate to my family, which, you know, I don't know if that's gonna be bad.
Nia Hampton:But but it has made filmmaking, like, that much more interesting, and I'm I'm discovering the type of filmmaker I am and what my strengths are and where I should be, because that's not always going to be necessary for a certain project. And sometimes, it's about, like, becoming discerning, you know, and not saying yes to every invitation and not following up with every person you need and just being like so, again, people 2 different people told me about this. And I've been out of the podcast week for a while. I just listened to astrology videos on YouTube.
Rob Lee:Like, you
Nia Hampton:know, I'm a I'm a I'm a amateur astrologer, but I listen to, like, the bullshit astrology ones and then just choose your own adventure, like lullabies for adults. And, you know, it's just a lot going on, so I don't really wanna know the news. But I am talking about art all the time in my program and in the work that I'm trying to do. So I'm like I like I when I find people that can actually conversate about art, and not just in a superficial, like, this
Rob Lee:is cool, this is cool, but how do you feel about it?
Nia Hampton:You know? Like, that's when I'm like, oh, okay. I could do this for a couple of hours.
Rob Lee:Oh, yeah. And, and and this is this is my attempt to string everything together. You were touching on family. You were touching on projects. And so in an effort to be full circle, let's move towards the current work, and let's discuss My Mother the Clown.
Rob Lee:What is it about, and why did you decide to make the film?
Nia Hampton:So My Mother the Clown is about a, serially un un unemployed, underemployed millennial named Nina Hamilton, whose elderly clown of a mother, silly Sheila, is injured on the job. She's a pizza sign swirler. And so Nina is forced to figure out, you know, how to pay bills. She's recently moved back in her house as a as a 30 year old, so it's already enough that I live at home. It's like, damn, now my mother's not in like, what I'm a do?
Nia Hampton:You know? And so without giving out too much, it's just like a social realist comedy. It's just a slight exaggeration of what the past 4 years have been like for me. It stars my actual mother, Sheila Gaskins, and my actual sister as Nina Hamilton. It was shot in my house.
Nia Hampton:And again, it is like the critical population of family lore. Like, my mother is a comedian. I grew up watching her perform on stages. I grew up watching her be a bag lady, which is a type of clown. Yeah.
Nia Hampton:I know about I know about, like, clowns in a real way. Like, you know, like, she we, like, we take art very seriously in my house, but I think the fact that we are in West Baltimore and we're unassuming black folks is like, Yeah. I mean, it's it's just a project that came to me when I was prying over a breakup at my graduate assistant job in the winter, which was the the cage production cage of UMBC, and I'm literally cleaning cameras, and I'm just like, I just got my student loans because I totally did not it didn't mix I I realized, like, oh, I could still get student loans as a grad student.
Rob Lee:Yeah. So I
Nia Hampton:got those all at once. I was, like, oh, my God. And my friends who went to, like, Tisch and stuff like that, like, you know, film school, you make films every year. That's what you take the loans off of. Like, you make a film.
Nia Hampton:And I'm like, oh, even though I'm not necessarily in a program that is, like, dedicated to film, it's a lot more studio based art and just talking about your work. I was like, let me see if I can make a film real quick, And it happened, and a lot of the connections and the people I work with are folks whose work I knew from managing a festival for 7 years. And so much of filmmaking is just like, oh, I like you. I'm a work with you one day when I get the money. It's all speculative.
Nia Hampton:And in this moment, I was like, bet. I got the money. Like, let me let me talk to people who do this. And not everyone was able to see it all the way through, but a lot of people, like, delivered me to the folks who could help me, and that was really helpful. But, yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a real film in a time where I think people are being disillusioned with, like, celebrity and wealth, and this shit is hard outside.
Nia Hampton:You know? Like, people are paying for groceries on layaway. Like, it's just it's a real time, and so we need to see art that reflects our time so that we don't feel even crazier than what we already are. It's been a way for me to talk about what COVID has taken for me. It's been a way for me to kind of, you know, interrogate what it means to be a daughter.
Nia Hampton:I don't know that that's something that folks get to talk about, like, a coming of age story when you're already of age. Coming of age is kind of, like, between 15 and 22. It's like, no. No. As long as you you know, we're always all coming of age, and not every story about, you know, family has to center on young children.
Nia Hampton:Some of us have family well into you know? Or fam some of us have a familiar dynamic where we are still seen as a child even if we're an adult, right? And a lot of us, I think more than anything, coming into my thirties, especially post COVID, so many of my friends who were either missing parents because they had recently lost parents or became parents themselves were like, I need to see work about that. You know, everything is about getting married and getting rich, but but it's like, sometimes it's just about surviving Christmas. You know?
Nia Hampton:Like, sometimes it's just about surviving visiting your grandmother. Like, I kinda need more content about black families, and this is my, like, submission to that canon.
Rob Lee:No. I I I appreciate that. I love that. And, you know, I love that you touched on it as a as a comedy, and that it has I I I had a conversation, maybe a couple years ago with, a filmmaker who was working on a HBO show, and it was shot in Chicago, you know, so the show South Side. And we were talking about it, and he and I'd asked him, I was like, so in having something that's real, that's representative, that has a lot of black folks, and is in a quote unquote black city in sort of south side Chicago, I was, like, you know, we we were talking about him having a cool conversation as we wrap, and we close out.
Rob Lee:He's like, man, I want to see some comedy come out of Baltimore. He's like, I want to see more of that, and and, you know, I was just like, I I have a few ideas, and I like that we're moving in that direction, specifically, you know, what you're describing with your work, it's it's it's relatable. It is you know, especially with the family component, like, those are the stories that really interest me, and then having something that's topical and recent, and and and it's just it just relates and it hits them on those levels. So when you're you're thinking about sort of this this recent history, and it has those those elements that are challenging, those elements that are, like, man, oh, we're covering this, What are the considerations that that you're making to say like, alright, does this fit in here? Should I take this out?
Rob Lee:Should I maybe use this story that I know and I'm very intimate with but it didn't directly happen to me in this order and or my my family in this order in this way?
Nia Hampton:I mean, I'm a very resourceful person, so it was just like, what do we have? What can we do? You know, like, the script that I wrote is not the film that you all will see because we just had to make real decisions in real time. I think the most the the toughest considerations for me, at the time, my sister was maybe 4 months pregnant. And so I was just like she has, like she she's in every scene.
Nia Hampton:You know, she carries the film, and I'm I was so nervous. I'm, oh my god. This she's pregnant. Like, this is hard. It's so like, what are we gonna do?
Nia Hampton:But she just came through and, like, really amazed me. And I think because this is my first film, and I'm just really focused on seeing it through, right, seeing it through to distribution because it's so hard to make films. Like, it I can't even I can't get into it's something good or bad. Does it exist? Like, that's that's the title of this chapter, like, because it is so hard for reasons that are beyond our control.
Nia Hampton:I mean, we we know those reasons. I don't have to go into that. But, like, for me, it's like, how do we how do we make this thing? And so let me know if I'm even answering the question.
Rob Lee:Let's feel like I'm going
Nia Hampton:on a tangent. But it's just I don't know. It's one of those things where, like, the considerations were, can I do this? I have recently, just recovered from being sick. I had a really great graduate advisor, Sarah Sharp, who kinda just was real honest.
Nia Hampton:I dropped this place, but you can just survive.
Rob Lee:Right.
Nia Hampton:Cause there's no way I would have like, did well in school and, and pulled this film off. And it just, you know, the film is about survival. Like, you know, the the the Nina is presented with an opportunity via, reality TV show.
Rob Lee:-Right.
Nia Hampton:-Um, that is just obscene and absurd because these reality TV shows are ridiculous. Like, they're just And so, in writing that, I'm just like, this is liter like, a literal nightmare, but this does look like the only way out. Right? Like, because the circumstance, you have a mom for a clown, that's a spectacle. Like, you can't she not about to go and get a job at a bank, you know?
Nia Hampton:Like, you really kinda have to just surrender and accept your circumstances and figure it out. And so this is a short, but I think it'll be a web series if it does well because there's a whole world that can come out of this. But just kinda get into a place of acceptance. It's like, this is what I have. I can't write a movie about, you know, being admired by 15 different people or being rich.
Nia Hampton:Like, that's not I don't got that. Like, I got a I got a mother who is a genuine artist who is willing to do very strange things on camera. I got a sister who can show up all the time and say some love. I got a cousin who know how to hold a camera. Got another cousin that can dance.
Nia Hampton:You know? And I happen to have built somewhat of a platform for myself, so I need to stop being afraid of being judged for being good or bad because it's tough. It's hard to go from being the judger to being like, actually, guys, it's my turn. This is something that I've done. I hope you don't hope you don't hate it.
Nia Hampton:But I'm like, well, if you hate it, if it's bad, well, we all gonna find out. You know? I'm a find out it's gonna be y'all find out if it's actually good. But it shouldn't be the that shouldn't be my determinant thing. Right?
Nia Hampton:And that that kinda goes back to what it means to be an artist in a society. Like, one bad attempt at a art thing should not make or break you. And if it does, that speaks to, like, a culture at large. And I come from a school of I grew up in wound work under Mama Kaye and Mom Rasheeda. When we are practicing art theater and we are dancing, you you on the floor till you get it.
Nia Hampton:So, yeah, my considerations was what I have. This is what I got. I'm a put it out there. Hopefully, it does well. And I get to learn what I do as a filmmaker.
Nia Hampton:Like, I get to learn, like, okay. This is a strength for me. I did this really well. I did this poorly. But this ain't my this is the beginning.
Nia Hampton:Like, this ain't even a hard story I want to tell. They have some stories that, like, I know will wreck me if I get the chance to tell them, but, like, because I've surrendered to my circumstances and who I am, which is an artist, what else I'm gonna do? And the life, like, the world kind of have just, it just opens up to me, you know, when I show up. Like, I'm an artist, this is what I do. People, like, give me stuff.
Nia Hampton:Like, oh, okay, yeah, you're an artist, this is what you do. You know? And I watch people, you know, watch my work, and they get things from them. I'm like, I don't even know if I planned that. Like, I don't know.
Nia Hampton:Like, what you know, once it's out in the world, it it doesn't even belong to you anymore. And so, like, you know, my mother's plan, once it exists out in the world, I don't know that I'll identify so deeply with the things that come up, in that film. I hope I hope it's cathartic for me in that way. But we'll see. It also could just go left and destroy my family.
Nia Hampton:I have no idea. I have no idea.
Rob Lee:That's a great great spot, Festa Connor. I I wanna have one more comment before I move into these rapid fire questions. And, yeah, I I think, you know, sort of the resourcefulness, the the courage, you know, when we we put these things out there, I I think each time that we work on, I I'm just gonna say, macroly speaking, the reps, whatever it is that you go, hours and whether it's that so this what have you, you know, it's it's courage in putting it out there because not everyone is doing it, and it's hard to get some of these things made. So, you know, and I'm always happy that things exist. That's that's the thing that I look for.
Rob Lee:And, you know, I place I play on Reddit a little bit sometimes just getting a take on how people feel about certain things, specifically things in in Baltimore, and just seeing some of the takes. And people are very, very snobbish in it and almost as if they don't want to see things made. And it's just like, look. This is an attempt, like and it's a thing that my partner says, because she she's she's a bit older. She has a background in stage in English, and she was just like, where's yours?
Rob Lee:Whenever someone has that really tight.
Nia Hampton:That's what my love would say all the time. And you know what's funny. Right? The thing about taste is, like, it's so political. Like, good and bad is such a it's really an indicator of who you are, what you value, and where you come from.
Nia Hampton:I, I was introduced to a text called Towards an Imperfect Cinema.
Rob Lee:The
Nia Hampton:the author is eluding me right now, but it was basically about Cuban revolutionary filmmakers saying, like, hey, we reject European cinema because we are trying to be different. So our entire film scene needs to be different. We don't need to be replicating what they're doing over there if we say we are who we are over here. And so the tasting in Baltimore and, like, what's good and what's bad, I grew up in stage plays. You know, like, my uncle was Baltimore's Tyler Perry, Howard Jean.
Nia Hampton:You know? And, like, is it my cup of tea? I'm different. But do I respect the craft and the grind and, like, I was working the spotlight. You know?
Nia Hampton:Right. This is my time to, like, use what I got from him even and put my little twist on it. And it's funny looking at my work now. I'm like, dang. That's long for how wow.
Nia Hampton:Look. Wow. But, like, yeah. You know? Like, that's how art is.
Nia Hampton:It's just communication. It's just people telling stories around a campfire. You know? Like and so if you sit on the sidelines judging other people's story and to become a true critic, you know, and learn how to, like, talk about what's happening and what's not because I'm I'm not like nobody can say anything. No.
Nia Hampton:We all need some judgment and correction and consideration. But, like, usually, when people are hating from the sidelines, it's because they too afraid to, like, put their own thing in. And it's like, I can't even that holds no weight. I can only be judged. Like, you know, you can't compare where you can't compete where you don't compare.
Nia Hampton:Like, I can only hear folks who are doing the thing. Now you might be better than me, but that's that's relative. You know? You're better than me right now. You might not be better than me 5 years in whatever it is that we do.
Rob Lee:I love
Nia Hampton:that. So
Rob Lee:You're right.
Nia Hampton:Again, I'm I I grew up. I'm not the only one like myself. I'm surrounded by people who are making great art. I'm just the one who happens to have, like, time and attention and energy right now, and that's not even all we would think. You know?
Nia Hampton:So I'm like, bet, I got the baton. I'm a do my little run, and then the next person might take it. And maybe, hopefully, I can benefit from that. But, ultimately, I just I like to live in a world where things exist and and like you said.
Rob Lee:Yeah. So I got I got 3 rapid fire questions for you before we close out here. The first one because, you know, I've been typing as we've been talking, you know. Like I said, as people start saying things, I'm like, okay. That's a better question.
Rob Lee:So the first one I gotta go off with since you're you're out here studying, what's your astrological sign?
Nia Hampton:Oh, are we talking tropical or sidereal?
Rob Lee:Shit. You hit me with both. I mean, I'm I'm you know?
Nia Hampton:What you know about sidereal?
Rob Lee:I have no idea. I just wanna I wanna start right now.
Nia Hampton:Like, well, I'm born in December. So, tropically, I'm a sun, Sagittarius. So, dearly, I'm a sun, Scorpio. But I, identify the most with being a Cancer rising. Your rising sign is how you read your natal chart, which is
Rob Lee:how you get into predictive astrology. Look. I all I know is is January 20th. That's all I get for myself, all of the other stuff. I don't know.
Rob Lee:And just some
Nia Hampton:Yeah. Cancer Rising is about family. So I'm like, yeah, pretty on the nose.
Rob Lee:You mentioned this, reality TV. Favorite reality TV show.
Nia Hampton:You know, I kinda hate reality TV. My mom and my sister watch it all the time, and so I'm kinda always surrounded by it, but it kinda alright. So my actual favorites, 90 Day Fiance, like, the whole universe. Love After Lockup if I'm feeling very, like, messy, because sometimes it's too sad. Couples therapy on the high end, like, if I feel like being cultured or if I meet somebody and I want them to judge me, you know, I'm watching Couples Therapy.
Nia Hampton:Couples Therapy is good. And on the low end, like, I just need to, like, zombie out binge Love Island.
Rob Lee:That's good. That's good. I on occasion, I watch and it's it's because of one of my friends, we're we're both, like, larger guys, and we just wanna, like, look at sort of how we measure up. And it's not, like, because ultimately we both end up feeling super sad. If if you're watching, like, my 600 pound wife, and you'll see, like, these lips of this dude just ordering everything and then singing to the tasty cakes.
Rob Lee:I'm like, yo, you are wowed, but then it's just Wow. You're you gotta get the surgery because this is this is happening. So it's like you get, you know, 90% sadness in that one moment of like, yo, I like cheese fries, but I ain't singing to Tastykake. This is what Mhmm. You you feel a little bit better about yourself and then bad afterwards.
Rob Lee:So I'm like, I don't like that as much.
Nia Hampton:I mean, we all watch reality TV shows that feel better than people. That's literally even Housewives. We watch Housewives to judge people that we think are wealthy.
Rob Lee:So Sure. Okay. This is the last one I got for you. If you had a theme song, right, you know, coming to the stage, we got Nia Hampton, what is the song that you're coming out to?
Nia Hampton:I think today, it would be Name It, Claim It by the Clark Sisters. Mhmm. It really could be anything, but it's Juneteenth, and I am a spiritualista. Like, I have a ancestor altar, and I believe in prayer. I'm not necessarily but I believe in, like, spiritual practices.
Nia Hampton:It's just a way to kind of keep ourselves grounded. And I just had a good prime session to some gospel music. And I there was a a tweet, I think, like, you know, when a black person lives
Rob Lee:in the gospel music, they about
Nia Hampton:to change their whole life. So, you know, I'm I'm in the process of raising I think we got 6. I need 6 more to get this post production finished. So I really have to be on some, like, I'm gonna get it. It's mine.
Nia Hampton:I have to talk to like, I really have to tap in and become a character and understand it. What's for me is what's for me, and what's for me is money right now so I can do my thing. So gospel music, you know, it's gonna get you together. Clark Sisters, like, everything about them is just like, oh my god. Yes.
Rob Lee:Thank you. And, and it makes it makes a lot of sense, and this is another one of those sort of post segue segues. So there's 2 things I wanna do as we close out here. One, I wanna thank you for for spending some time with me. It's been great chatting.
Rob Lee:I feel like I've This
Nia Hampton:has been really fun. I like what you said about, like, what, artist blonde dates. But, yeah, you know, I I give a good first date. The other one's not so much, but I'm a great first date. We have a good time.
Rob Lee:Thank you. That's that's funny. And for the second part, I I wanna do the shameless plug piece. Where can folks support the film? Where can folks, like, support sort of the completion of the film, and where can they follow you?
Rob Lee:Website, social media, all that good stuff. You know, elevator pitch, the floor is yours.
Nia Hampton:Right. So you can follow us on Instagram at glowingpainstudio, or you can find the film festival on Instagram at b f f film fest or our website, bfffilmfest.com. We're hosting this campaign through Seed and Spark. So if you go to seed and spark dotcom and search my mother the clown or my name, Mia Hampton, it will come up. There's also the tiny URL, HTTP semicolonforward/tinyurl.com/clownmom.
Nia Hampton:So even on Facebook, like, black femme supremacy film sites that'll come up with Loy and Payless Studio, that'll come up.
Rob Lee:So for Nia Hampton, I am Rob Lee saying that there is art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You just got to look for it.
