Lenett Partlow-Myrick aka Mama Nef
Artist Statement
I am an African-descendant female who makes artifacts of my lived experiences on this occupied Indigenous land called the United States. Every literary, visual, and performance work of art I create is a chapter in that experience. The narrative constantly shifts. I also create works about people who inspire me, deeply, like wild west Black pioneer Stagecoach Mary Fields (c. 1832 – December 5, 1914). My creative process is spirit-driven, anchored in ancestor veneration, meditation, divination practices, Agnihotra, silence, and contemplative journal writing/collaging. My mission these days is mental + emotional + spiritual emancipation = complete sovereignty. I love: being an artist, my family, ancestors, natural environments, animals, laughing hard, creative collaborations, oceans, spiritual rituals, magic, YouTube, pinochle, 60s + 70s music, and being with my friends.
About the Artist
Baltimore native Lenett Partlow-Myrick aka Mama Nef is a visual artist, poet-writer, educator, spirARTtual activist, sacred space creator, grandmother, and principal artist for Partlow Art. Her visual art has been featured at the Ecomedia Blagden ArtScience Warehouse, Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, in Leakin Park (Baltimore), on the covers of Passager literary journal, in her 33Bookz solo show, the University of Baltimore/University of Maryland Earth Project exhibit, in the Dos-à-Dos book art exhibit with Jenny O’Grady, and in group shows at the Hamilton Gallery. She has curated exhibits and arts events at Function Coworking Community, the Creative Alliance, Beyond the Global Divide International Young Leaders’ Summit, and most recently for the Healing Bridges Across the Divide: Baltimore visual-literary exhibition with co-curator Rain Pryor.
Her writings appear in several anthologies, including A Community of . . . VOICES, When Divas Laugh, Little Patuxent Review, Dancing Shadow Review, Bum Rush the Page, The Muse, Poetry Baltimore, and Awakening the Heart of the Beloved Community. She has held writing residencies and commissions with the Ripken Reading Center, Baltimore Homeless Union, Maryland Food Committee, The Way Space, and Miami Light Project. She has also appeared as a featured poet at the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Book Festival, Artscape, Theater Project, Wilde Reading Series, Blackbird Poetry Festival, Miami Center for Performing Arts, and Baltimore ’68 Riots: Loss and Legacy. Her original stage works include the 2-act dramedy The Conjure Woman Episode, The Dance We Do When We Be Sistas! one-act play, the Peace Projections multimedia show, and a series of jazzoetry performances with international drummers, musicians, and vocalists. She is the subject of the award-winning documentary Mbele Ache, the CSN-TV special “Voices of Our Past,” and was honored in 2022 for her activism by the AFRO American News. In 2022, she produced her first short video documentary, “Making Our Spaces Sacred,” about outdoor sacred spaces created and sustained by African Americans in Baltimore City.
Mama Nef holds a B.A. in English, studied Publications Design, and attended the University of Baltimore’s Creative Writing and Publishing Arts MFA program. She has taught writing and literature courses at Goucher College, the Osher Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Howard Community College. She also co-facilitates a creative studio for the Ecological Literacy Immersion Program (ELIP) at Omega Institute with her colleague Connor Stedman. She serves as a community leader, an original member of the Trail of Dreams World Peace Walkers, a Licensed Lifeshop: Conscious Living facilitator, and an Elder for Beyond the Global Divide International Youth Summit. Mama Nef earned a Master’s degree in Leadership for Sustainability at the University of Vermont where she is currently completing a Ph.D. in Transdisciplinary Leadership, Creativity, and Sustainability.