Meet Lex Martin | Multifaceted Creative + Mental Wellness Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lex Martin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lex, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Black Girls Need Love is dedicated to acknowledging the mental + emotional needs of black women, and their communities. I made the decision to create BGNL after a series of traumatic experiences that left me feeling isolated, misunderstood, and ultimately like my existence was a burden instead of a blessing. Although unfortunate, this experience helped me to realize that I was lacking a little bit of love from my community, and lacking a lot of love from myself. I believe that love is an integral part of our being. It is extremely necessary for each of us to have a source of love in our lives, in order to healthily navigate this human experience. As Black Women, that need often goes overlooked. We’re so busy being resilient that we forget to take the time to love ourselves & those around us. Once we skip out on love we begin to neglect our other needs as well, and the rest of the world follows suit. The BGNL Movement is meant to remind black girls the value of acknowledging their own needs. It is meant to encourage them, and the rest of our surrounding communities, to honor those needs after first ackwolegding them. That acknowledgment begins with love. BGNL was created with the intention to provide a community that will support black girls seeking healing, as well as to destigmatize the acknowledgment of mental + emotional wellness in the black community, by initiating mindful conversations.

So far, in less than a year of the origination of BGNL:
• We’ve had the opportunity to co-host two events in which we invited our local community to explore their relationship with mental health/self-care. Within these events, we shared ‘Mindful Moments’, took part in mental health relief activities, shared various free/ affordable mental wellness resources, and encouraged attendees to socialize and build their personal communities.
• We held a virtual wellness giveaway in celebration of Black History Month, in which we gave away prizes to 3 of our community members. Each prize was a different wellness item(s) gifted to us by local black-female owned businesses.
• We’ve also been fortunate enough to host our first merchandise sale/ fundraising campaign, in which 50% of all sales and donations were given to The Loveland Foundation. We raised over $600 to contribute to The Loveland Foundation’s initiative to provide free therapy to black girls and women across the United States.

Our goal is to continue initiating the conversation + building community in culturally relevant ways. My personal goal is to continue making use of my various creative skills in doing so. We want to continue expanding this platform through social media, merchandise, and community events. We also plan to continue raising funds through merchandise sales and community events, so that we may donate to organizations, like The Loveland Foundation, who are supporting black girls and women seeking healing.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
From a young age, I’ve always recognized that I’m a very emotional being. I cry hard, I laugh hard, and I love hard. I’ve always had so many feelings, thoughts, and ideas, and it didn’t take me long to realize that being creative was an ideal outlet for me. I’ve always loved music and the way that words, sounds, and rhythms can come together and make you feel. As a child, I loved to express myself with drawings and dance. I spent a large part of my childhood on a praise dance/ step team named Destiny’s Troupe. As I got a little older, around middle school, I realized how much I loved to write. I would write poetry in class about my feelings toward myself, my home life, boys, and whatever else popped into my 13-year-old brain. My friends at the time always made me feel a bit self-conscious about writing poems, being sensitive, and having expansive interests in all forms of expression. I would get humiliated for listening to certain genres of music or for wanting to be apart of drama club and perform. It didn’t always feel safe to follow my heart or explore the things that brought me joy.

By the time I started high school, I was blessed enough to be accepted into Davidson Fine Arts School, where I was trained in drama and dance. Even here, it took a minute to find my confidence. I was sharing space with students who had been professionally trained since age 4 and here I was just beginning at age 14 . Luckily, being in a space where I was encouraged to be expressive and explore what life had to offer, outside of my immediate environment, allowed me to began truly finding myself. I joined the poetry club and became very confident in my writing. I started to enjoy writing short stories and scripts as well. Training in drama not only made me a more confident person, but a much more empathetic and concerned person as well. Even today, I feel like I often struggle with feeling connected to the world around me, but being in genuine creative spaces always feels safe. It always feels like home.

For most of my life, I thought I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. After being a student at DFA for 4 years, I fell in love with storytelling and began to consider pursuing a career in the arts. I made the decision to major in Theatre and Performance Studies (Acting Concentration) at Kennesaw State University. During my time at KSU I learned that I could combine my passions of teaching and acting by becoming a Teaching Artist. One of my professors encouraged me to apply for a Teaching Artist fellowship at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Ga. The Alliance gave me the opportunity to work as a teaching artist trainee and earn class credit during the summer before my junior year. KSU is also where I discovered my passion for advocacy. Being a black female theatre artist, a black female at a predominatley white high school (after existing only in predominately black spaces my entire life), and being a black female in genreal- I became quickly aware how unique our experiences are when it comes to representation, inclusion, and equity. I was devoted to being a Black Theatre Scholar and working to include the contributions of Black artists in the majority (if not the entirety) of my work, both in class and on stage. I used my writing to tell stories of the black experience, as well as the female experience. I also served on the executive board of the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. at my university all four years.

Since earing my B.A. in 2023, I’ve worked as a performer & teaching artist at various theatres and studios in Georgia. I also currently use all these passions and skills to produce my brand: Black Girls Need Love! Choosing to build a career out of your creativity is not easy at all. My work is very personal to me, and it hurts that I could have the courage to be vulnerable with my art and it could still be rejected (and it often is)! It has taught me, though, that not only do I deserve to take up space, but sometimes I need to start creating the space for myself as well. Black Girls Need Love is just one example of that. BGNL has allowed me to continue creating, storytelling, and advocating all in one space. Not only to I get the opportunity hold space for in my life for the things I love, but I get to give love to others in the process of it all.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m currently an Atlanta resident, but I was raised in Augusta, GA. If I had the chance to show someone my city, I’d take them to the riverwalk downtown! We would visit a bunch of the shops on Broad Street, including one of my favorites, Sirus Sage. Hopefully, this visit is during spring or summer, so we could go to the Saturday Famers Market, too. There is always locally grown produce and local businesses that sell everything you could think of. Then we would eat at my favorite local food spot as a child, Zacks Wings and Seafood, or one of my adulthood favorites, Solé or Soy Noodle House.

If my loved ones came to see me in Atlanta I would take them to the Trap Music Museum, BJ’s Record Lounge, Piedmont Park, and to visit the High Museum or see a show at the Alliance Theatre. Hopefully, with the right timing, we could also visit the Atlanta Street Wear Market, and I would definitely drag them with me to do yoga in Colony Square during the summer. Then for food, we would visit Roc South, one of my favorite Black Owned spots here so far!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to dedicate my shoutout to my mom for always encouraging me to follow my dreams, and for helping me gain the resources to be able to achieve them. I also wanna dedicate this shoutout to all the people I’ve connected with in this life. God has allowed me to share so many spaces with so many different people, and I’ve learned so much from them all, no matter how big or small the connection. I am so grateful to already have loved, learned, experienced, and been inspired so much in only 23 years.

Website: https://linktr.ee/blackgirlsneedlove

Instagram: @blackgirlsneed, @lexmartincreative

Image Credits
Personal Photo: Shot and Edited by Miles Bently