We recently connected with Lisa Hammer and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I always take risks. I always have. It’s hard to know where to start. From my decision to be an entertainer when I was a child – every audition, rehearsal, performance all were risks, as I was very shy. I just knew I had to perform. I seem to have been punished in life whenever I DIDN’T take a risk. When I got to college, I blindly jumped from musical theatre right into filmmaking. I’ve said yes to so many weird and wild opportunities that led to more weird and wild opportunities. Singing on stage with bands, making Avant-garde films, collaborating with artists and never holding a “normal” job. I have never taken the normal route, no kids, no retirement, no safety net. I’m intrigued to see how it all plays out!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Lisa Hammer is a NY independent film director and singer-songwriter. She is best known for her surrealist, German Expressionist films, lush music videos and experimental horror-fairy tales and dark comedies, as well as the voice of Triana Orpheus on Adult Swim’s cartoon The Venture Bros. She has also contributed to Joanie4Jackie, a film anthology project run by Miranda July, which featured Hammer’s film Empire of Ache (which was recently acquired by The Getty Museum.) In the past Lisa has collaborated with Ben Edlund (Firefly, The Tick) and Doc Hammer (The Venture Bros) on such films as Crawley and Pus$Bucket, and with James Merendino (SLC Punk!). Hammer and Merendino co-directed a dark-humor feature film The Invisible Life of Thomas Lynch, a film about a lonely hitman, which won best feature film at the 2009 CMJ film Festival. Lisa’s films have won awards from the CMJ Film Festival, Telly Awards, Hugo Awards, It Came From Kuchar Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Canada International Screenplay Festival, Ontario Film Festival, Antimatter, Indieworks and two from New York Press, to name a few. She has had one-woman shows at the Olympia Film Festival, Perth International Film Festival, and the Duolun Art Museum in Shanghai, China. Hammer directed Dame Darcy’s NYC 90’s TV show Turn of the Century with guest stars Courtney Love and Thurston Moore, and the 2000’s cult classic Pox with guest stars Clayne Crawford, James Duval, Aarti Mann, H. Jon Benjamin, Jonathan Katz, Eve Plumb and Arden Myrin. Recent projects include the release of her feature film The Sisters Plotz, also starring Eve Plumb. Her new screenplay Ghostapus is winning awards and has great talent attached. Her music video “Hunted: Werewolves of the Astral Plane” for her side-project Fashion Bird Danger Danger is currently winning awards in the international film festival circuit. Hammer co-created and co-writes the original series Maybe Sunshine now on the Seeka TV channel on Roku. Her TV series “Great Kills” was recently acquired by Tubi TV. She recently worked with Molly Ringwald as executive producer and editor of the upcoming feature film “Montauk”, and recently created a short with husband Levi Wilson about his childhood in the Midwest as a half Asian child, “Luke and Emma and a Gas Station on Franklin Avenue”, which is hitting the festival circuit in the next few months.
For a full filmography please visit www.lisahammer.com

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Artists are not looked upon well in America. We get messages from every authority figure telling us to “grow up” and “get a real job”. Well, if we all listened to these sources, there would be nothing to watch on TV, in the theatre, no music, no art in the galleries, aside from commissioned religious art, no books, dance, etc. The arts endowment organizations are too few and far between, and don’t even begin to cover a large enough portion of struggling artists to allow for inclusion of a wide diversity of thoughts and ideas. Throw onto the pile the newest impossible struggle: Housing. At least for a time in New York I was able to survive because I had a $300 rent-controlled apartment. Now, the housing lottery’s idea of affordable housing is $2500 a month studio. Corporations have taken over and landlords have gone insane with greed. The situation for artists in America is Dickensian. This cannibalistic capitalist system will never allow for either fair housing for artists nor more money for endoments and artist orgs. The easy sellable crap floats to the top here and serious art gets buried and sneered at.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilience is the main force driving me now for almost 40 years. My biggest hurdle was about 6 years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, I gathered up my strength, made a point to laugh and smile my way through, and kept moving and creating. My husband and close friends and family were my biggest supporters. I was exhausted and in pain. But my stubborn nature kept me working, whether I was writing my feature screenplay “Ghostapus” from my bedside or screening “The Sisters Plotz” and “Maybe Sunshine” at festivals in my chemo wig, or even singing on the radio with my band Radiana, (with my scratchy voice), I refused to stop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lisahammer.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelisahammer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLisaHammer/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelisahammer/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/theLisaHammer
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/lisahammer
• Other: Hammer’s music on “Free Music Archive”: https://freemusicarchive.org/member/Lisa_Hammer/

Image Credits
Still from “Maybe Sunshine” directed by Levi Wilson.