Interviews with Creatives: Naomi Elizabeth Montoya and Su Hudson

My interview with creatives Naomi Elizabeth Montoya and Su Hudson

Filmmaker Su + multidisciplinary artist Naomi on creating work inspired by landscapes + domestic spaces, finding your creative community, + doing what you love rather than chasing the money

Naomi started with painting and visual art in her youth, began dance in middle school, and has taught for 27 years – two decades of which have been at a performing arts school teaching contemporary dance. She’s also performed with an Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian dance company.

Su is a filmmaker with over 35 years in the film industry. Their collaborative work takes dancers off the stage and into other locations – diverse landscapes like the white sands of New Mexico (crystal gypsum sands) or domestic spaces like kitchens – creating films that they often bring back to stage for multimedia performances combining film with live dance or installations. Their creative process is location-driven and spontaneous – they might plan extensively but don’t really know what will happen until they arrive at a location, as conditions like wind, sand texture, or spatial constraints change how movement unfolds. They’re primarily inspired by landscape and space, exploring how diverse New Mexican environments fuel creation, but also work extensively in domestic spaces to explore the female experience – particularly kitchens as the heart of homes where secrets, gossip, and life’s stories unfold.

Naomi’s individual process involves journaling, improvisational movement, and letting ideas sit before developing them, sometimes keeping ideas on the shelf for months or years before completing them. Su handles technical aspects like lighting and equipment.

They work around grants with parameters, fitting creative work around daily tasks and paid employment. Their advice to beginning creatives emphasises finding your community of supportive people when family support isn’t available, not taking no for an answer, doing what you love so everything falls into place, learning your tools and equipment, applying for grants, doing the work repeatedly until you create something you like, and viewing every experience – even rejections – as learning opportunities. Naomi particularly stresses that creative work feeds the soul and brings happiness even without financial wealth, and that if work feels fun, it’s probably what you should do.

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Connect with Naomi Elizabeth Montoya

Introduction

MD: Hello, Su and Naomi. Do you want to start by just introducing yourselves, your names and where you’re from?

NEM: My name is Naomi Elizabeth Montoya. I’m from Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States.

SH: And I’m Su Hudson. I am also from Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States.

MD: Excellent. Naomi, can you please tell me about what your creative discipline or creative disciplines may be?

NEM: Well, I think I consider myself to be a multidisciplined artist and mostly in performing arts. I started out doing painting and a lot of visual art. In middle school, I started with dance and that has been kind of like the trajectory that I’ve gone. I’ve taught for 27 years. Many of those years, two decades, has been teaching at a performing arts school, contemporary dance, and I also have been, I performed in an Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian dance company, so I would say dance is my primary medium. And here with Su Hudson, we do a lot of multimedia-type arts for gallery, for stage, as well as for screen, and yeah.

MD: Excellent. Excellent. That’s wonderful. Su, how about you?

SH: What was the question?

MD: Tell me your creative discipline.

SH: My creative discipline. I am a filmmaker with 35 plus years working in the film industry and for the past 20, Naomi and I have spent those years making site-specific dance films, which is a concept where you take a dancer off the stage and you take them anywhere else. Anywhere else. And so then the meta part of that is that we create these films and then what we do a lot of times is we’ll take it back on stage and create a performance that’s film with dancer with, or even an installation. We don’t always have to be there.

Creative Process

MD: Excellent. Tell me, maybe collectively but also separately, about your creative process. How do you work as a collaborative team?

SH: So, a lot of times what we do is it’s about the location. So, we’ll have a location where the white sands, I don’t know if you know them, they’re these crystal gypsum white gorgeous sands in southern New Mexico. And the idea of, you know, so we’ll know we’re going down there and we’ll think about white and colour and what we would like to do. I like to work with textiles, like lots and lots of material a lot of times. And so the idea of the sand with yards of taffeta or silk or whatever we can to move with that. And so then we can plan until we’re blue in the face, but really until we get there we don’t know what’s going to happen because we don’t know as a dancer.

NEM: Well, and I think that’s kind of the exciting and spontaneous part of like doing site-specific work. Because you may work in a studio and I may have like a short choreography, but once you’re there, in fact, when we did that first shoot in white sands, I had this choreographic phrase ready to go, but then realizing once I got there the unforgiving nature of the sand. You can’t stand still because when you move a certain way, your foot sinks. And I think that added like a different dimension in how one moves through the space. But I think, you know, we found that to be part of the excitement of not knowing what may happen. Like, is it going to be really windy that day? How are we going to work with that? Yeah, it’s going to rain. Not in New Mexico, but… So, I think, but the long, or the short story, or the short answer for that is that I think we’re primarily inspired by landscape and space. And just, you know, since we live and work primarily in New Mexico, there are so many diverse landscapes, and I think that’s been definitely like part of the fuel for inspiration and creation.

SH: But not just landscape. Space. Anything else is space.

NEM: Yeah, space.

SH: We work in a lot of domestic spaces, exploring like the female experience, like say in a kitchen, but taking it, creating a dance in a kitchen, or inside a refrigerator, or, you know, like domestic space that we use in a very specific way, and then in our real lives, but then using it differently. Creating movement in it. And it’s interesting because those, in particular, after a show, women really want to talk about working in the kitchen, and thinking about, because, you know. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dishes, wipe it down, never ends. Especially as you get older, that cycle is just bent over, bent over, bent over.

NEM: But also I think sometimes you think about like historically, like sometimes like the secrets, or the gossip, or the stories told in the kitchen, you know. It seems to be, you know, even when you have like a party, everyone always seems to gravitate towards the kitchen, even though you have these other fabulous living spaces. It’s like that’s the place, that’s really the heart of a home, and like what happens in that space, it’s like the good, the bad, and the ugly. You know, a friend comes over to tell you a story, you’re sitting at the table in the kitchen having coffee or tea to discuss, you know, all of the great things and some of the tragedies of life, so.

MD: So thinking about your creative process, what is different for each of your creative processes?

SH: I deal with a lot of the technical side of it. You know, I’m looking at light and equipment and, you know, times of day, things like that.

NEM: Yes, she actually often keeps me grounded and into the reality because sometimes I go off into the ether thinking about all of these other things and then, you know, it’s helpful. But I think as far as like when I have an idea, I often have to journal about it and let it sit and think about it. And I think sometimes that may be also maybe going into a studio or into a space and doing some improvisational movement but also coming back to journal about it and sometimes like, I don’t know, researching or, I don’t know, other ways to like feel like what’s my drive about doing this particular thing even if it doesn’t make sense to maybe the viewer or the public at large. So, I think that definitely journalling as well as movement are part of my process. And then, of course, we talk and sometimes we argue about, you know, what works, what doesn’t work. But I think it’s that give and take of ideas and then we finally like always come to this aha moment. We’re like, ah, yes, that’s it. You know, we finally come to like because it’s like we’re each, you know, have these great ideas but there finally is that like, ah, the connection. Yes, that’s it. That’s what we’re doing. Yes, so we’re both super excited about it and then that continues to drive whatever the project is forward.

SH: I’m behind the camera, she’s in front of the camera.

MD: Yes.

SH: Two different personalities.

Creative Routine

MD: Yes. Tell me a little bit about your creative routines. What routines do you have to do your creative work? Do you have daily routines, weekly routines? Do you have touchstones that take you into it?

SH: We’ve been doing this for so long now that a lot of times our work is based on grants that we get. And so sometimes those grants have parameters. And so that will guide a lot of what we do. But when we first started, even then, I mean, we’ve basically been. So, well, you can take it from here.

NEM: Yeah, I don’t know. I think if there’s sometimes like a project that we’re excited to be a part of, then that could be the gravitational force that it’s like, okay, there’s this project, let’s be a part of this show. Okay, as a result, what are we going to do? And then it’s like, you know, just like anything, you allot time, you plan time. But I think ultimately, or at least for myself independently, sometimes, you know, I do do a lot of journalling. And I always write down like ideas. I find inspiration from dreams. I find inspiration from sometimes music I hear. For a lot of dancers, sometimes they’ll hear a piece of music or even like a soundscape. And that’s enough of a drive to create something. So I just try to like document ideas. And sometimes those ideas, you have to put them on the shelf maybe three months, maybe six months, maybe five years. And then you could come back to it. But then you’re like, ah, here’s the completed piece. And then you could make something. But I think, you know, obviously, if there’s like an end goal, that’s definitely more of an incentive to complete something. And I think probably if we didn’t have the reality of just daily tasks, you know, to have to complete, we’d probably create a lot more. But trying to fit that in, if there’s not maybe an end goal is sometimes hard.

MD: And I mean the reality is a lot of creatives are working around the edges of, you know, paid work or other things. And so I’m hearing that that is kind of partly what your collaborative work is like.

Creative Wisdom

MD: If you were to meet and have a conversation with someone who’s really early on in their creative journey, just wanting to kind of dip their toes in and see what it’s like, what are pieces of wisdom that you would want to impart?

SH: Go ahead.

NEM: That’s a great question. I think that, you know, because I have the last, I don’t know, two decades have been working with dancers, I think I just remind them that, you know, even if you don’t have support from your family, because a lot of times for creatives, some people are lucky enough to have the support and the understanding of their families to like, yes, do your thing. But a lot of people unfortunately don’t have that support. There are people who understand you and who will support you, you know, and to find friendships of people who will support you in your endeavours. I think that’s hugely important because once you find your creative fellows, then you can really do anything. And so there’s that. And the other thing is just because someone tells you no, I mean, I know my personality type is like if someone says, oh, you can’t do that, that’s not a thing. You will never get work like that. I mean, that’s sometimes been more of a drive to do it and do it really well, you know, to kind of, you know. But, I mean, ultimately it’s like for most creatives and most artists, I think they will be happiest because the other thing is a lot of young people think that they’re not going to find work working in those fields. And I think if you do what you love, everything else will fall into place, and I think that’s really important. I mean, I knew as, you know, an artist, as a dancer, as an arts educator, I’m not going to be a millionaire, and I was okay with that, I think. But my life is really happy, and I know people I’ve talked to who do make a lot more money. It’s like they just have a lot more stress and a lot more, I don’t know, weight just because they don’t have that freedom to maybe travel and explore and to have fun. And I think the other thing is part of art making, there’s a misnomer about work in general is that for some people, and I mean, you could work in any field, but if you find it fun, then it’s probably the thing maybe you should do. And I think, of course, creating art, all of that feeds my soul. So I just think ultimately for a younger person, it’s like do what you love and everything will fall into place. Don’t take no for an answer, and find your people.

SH: Beautiful.

MD: Su?

SH: Learn how to use your camera. Yeah. You know, just use it. Use what you’ve got.

MD: Yeah. Learn how to use your tools.

NEM: Well, you gave great advice to my friend’s daughter who was interested in going to film. Do you remember what you said?

SH: No.

NEM: It was something about finding your voice.

SH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.

NEM: And that was great advice. You should talk about that.

SH: No, I’m good.

NEM: Okay. All right.

MD: Excellent. Thank you so much for your time. Is there anything else that you would want to share with people who are curious about creativity, creative processes, routines, getting into it, or staying with it?

SH: Apply for grants, do the work, you know, know your equipment, and just do it and do it and do it until you get something you like. You know, that’s the thing about keeping it going.

NEM: Well, and I think every time you, every opportunity you have, even if maybe you do apply for a grant and you don’t get it, I feel like it’s a learning experience. I think about that also for auditions or dancing and acting. It’s like every time you do something, you learn. Even if the outcome isn’t maybe what you expected, it’s just like, what did you get from that experience? And moving forward, what did you get from that experience? And continuing to learn is, you know, always fantastic.

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Connect with Naomi Elizabeth Montoya

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