Meet Lita Monteiro of New York

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lita Monteiro.

Hi Lita, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
How I got here: I’m a multidisciplinary artist with a degree in Fine Arts and a particular interest in people and what makes us human. Private and public gatherings and celebrations have become a fascinating lens for me to explore that through, especially because they allow us to weave deeply personal moments together with cultural, historical, and artistic references.

I met Shien, the founder of Astarte Creative, through a mutual friend and my college mentor, surrealist painter Carrie Ann Baade. Carrie had crossed paths with Shien at different points over the years and absolutely insisted that the two of us find a way to collaborate.

At the time, Shien had already been throwing parties for years, initially spending her college grants to produce them simply for the love of the game. She eventually earned the title of “natural provocateur” from The New York Times, and as word spread, companies like Google began asking her to create experiences for them. I was working as the Dreamweaver at The NoMad New York when I got a call from Shien saying things were finally growing enough to build a team around what she had started. I left my position to see what would happen.

How we got here: Together, we began building entertainment programs, both small and large, for an incredibly varied group of clients. As the years passed, the projects became more ambitious and the clients became bigger. Rather than turning toward generic solutions to meet that demand, we leaned further into our strengths as artists with very particular tastes.

A huge part of that has also been knowing when to call in people who are exceptional at their craft. We’ve built relationships with incredible fabricators, designers, choreographers, performers, musicians, and artists, and we trust them to bring their own expertise to the work. There’s a lot to be said for finding talented people, giving them a strong creative direction, and then trusting them where their talents lie. The results are almost always better for it.

We worked crazy hours, week after week and year after year, obsessing over details and finding ways to bring our particular flavor of elevated whimsy to every project. Ultimately, I think that combination of strong creative vision, collaboration, and a real dedication to aesthetics and craftsmanship is what set Astarte apart and allowed us to grow into what we are today.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not, but I’m not sure any worthwhile creative endeavor is.

One of our biggest challenges has been figuring out how to grow without losing the thing that made the work special in the first place. What we do is incredibly bespoke, and there isn’t really a formula for it. Every project brings a new venue, new collaborators, new creative challenges, and usually at least one request we’ve never encountered before. That can mean an enormous amount of research, problem-solving, and behind-the-scenes work for something a guest may experience for only a few minutes.

There have also been plenty of growing pains that come with turning something you love into a sustainable business. Learning how to price creative labor appropriately, setting boundaries, building systems, managing increasingly complex productions, and accepting that you simply cannot do everything yourself have all been lessons learned over time.

That last one has been particularly important for me. As artists, it can be tempting to have your hands in every detail, but I’ve learned that good creative direction isn’t about being the best person at every discipline. It’s about knowing what you’re trying to create, finding people who are exceptional at what they do, and trusting them to bring something to the project that you couldn’t have created on your own.

There have certainly been long nights, difficult projects, mistakes, and a lot of learning as we went. But I think those challenges ultimately helped us become much more intentional about what Astarte is and what kind of work we want to put into the world.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Astarte Creative is an entertainment and creative production agency working across private events, fashion, hospitality, nightlife, and brand experiences. Our specialty is taking a client’s vision—whether it’s fully formed or just the beginning of an idea—and translating it into entertainment that feels completely at home within the world they’re creating.

Our work lives somewhere between performance, art, theater, fashion, and spectacle. We might develop an immersive cast of characters, reinterpret a historical reference through a contemporary lens, commission an original performance, or create a strange and beautiful moment that guests encounter unexpectedly.

A big part of our value is knowing how to get from idea to execution. We’ve spent years building relationships with an incredible network of performers, artists, designers, choreographers, fabricators, and other specialists. Our clients don’t necessarily need to know who can make the obscure thing they’ve imagined, or even whether it’s possible—that’s our job. We know who to call, how to speak the language of different creative disciplines, and how to bring those pieces together into something cohesive.

I think what sets us apart is our point of view and our willingness to go quite far down the rabbit hole for an idea. We’re not afraid of specificity, unusual references, or creating something that may only ever exist for one night.

What I’m most proud of is that we’ve built a body of work that feels recognizably ours without becoming formulaic. The projects can look completely different from one another, but there’s a sensibility running through them: thoughtful, artful, slightly irreverent, and grounded in a genuine sense of wonder. Ultimately, we give our clients the creative freedom to dream big while giving them the experience and resources to actually pull it off.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I think one of the most important things is to develop your own point of view. Pay attention to what excites you, what you find beautiful, strange, funny, or moving, and don’t be too quick to sand those edges down in an effort to appeal to everyone. Taste is something you build over time, and it becomes incredibly valuable.

I also wish I had understood earlier that you don’t need to know how to do everything yourself. Being resourceful is often more important than already having the answer. Learn how to find the right people, ask good questions, communicate an idea clearly, and then trust people who know more than you do about their craft.

Relationships matter enormously, too. Be someone people want to work with again. Treat collaborators well, give credit generously, stay curious, and don’t underestimate where an unexpected introduction or seemingly small project might lead.

And finally, learn the business side earlier than I did. Creative work is still work. Understanding your value, charging appropriately, setting boundaries, and protecting your time doesn’t make you less passionate about what you do. It makes it possible to keep doing it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.astarte-creative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astarte.creative/?hl=en