Wearing bright orange hair and lipstick to match, Macy Higgins’ laugh pervades the small cafe where she’s chatting with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Some might say her vibrant art warms a room up the same way her personality does. Tampa Bay art lovers might know Higgins by her artist handle—Macy Eats Paint—under which she produces both small and large scale pieces, most often, on acrylic on canvas. Her artist name is inspired by a comment someone made about her years ago.
“Someone said, ‘You paint so much you practically eat it.’ I immediately liked that play on it, because paint is my fuel source,” Higgins says.
The 25-year-old is currently preparing for her debut as one of a 2020 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts “Emerging Artist”—her appearance on the lineup marks Higgins’ first after previously applying four times. On its 50th anniversary, Gasparilla Festival of the Arts—which Higgins considers the “ultimate festival”—takes place on Feb. 29 at Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, and showcases hundreds of artists. Once you stumble upon a tent covered in vibrant colors, Florida-centric themes (citrus, baby), feminine figures, and Taco Bell hot sauce packets fossilized in glittery resin—you’ll know you’ve stepped into the whimsical world of Macy Eats Paint.
Higgins is one of the 15 creatives in the “Emerging Artist” category, which “features the artwork of up-and-coming artists who wish to establish themselves in a professional visual arts career.” The festival provides all Emerging Artists with a 10 x 10 tent, but it’s entirely up to them how they want to present their art.
“I’m really excited for my tent, I mean I’ve had years to think about what it’ll look like,” Higgins says with a laugh. “I’m planning to install wood floors, so it’s like literally stepping into a gallery.”
Gasparilla Festival of the Arts
Sat. Feb. 29 (9 a.m.-6 p.m.)-Sun. March 1 (10 a.m.-5 p.m.). Free.
Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, 1001 N. Blvd., Tampa.
gasparillaarts.com
If you’ve seen any of Macy Eats Paint’s recent exhibits, throw any preconceived notions of her work out the window. She’s presenting an almost-entirely new group of work, but the eye-catching Taco Bell hot sauce resin pieces—which were shown in last year’s “Rapscallion” exhibit at Quaid Gallery—will make an appearance. Along with original paintings and creations, Higgins will also sell high-quality, signed prints in order to make her art accessible.
“My prints are for the people that want to support art but can’t afford that large price tag. I get it,” Higgins—who won some art awards in high school, but never went to college to study art—explains. “Art should be something that you connect with and want with you longer than just that first glance.”
Gasparilla Festival of the Arts wouldn’t have chosen Higgins if she hadn’t been making huge strides in the Tampa Bay art scene over the past year. From vendor positions at markets, to curating her own shows, to branching out in terms of mediums and concepts, Macy Eats Paint put the hours in, and her transition into the more established art scene proves that. The proof is in the Taco Bell hot sauce… and a goat.
Higgins is constantly dabbling in new mediums, including paper mache, which she tried for the first time as part of her contribution to the Thotonasassa-based philanthropic art project “Global Offensive Against Trafficking (stylized “G.O.A.T”). The campaign called for 55 Florida artists to paint a different model goat, in order to raise awareness against sex trafficking. Since one of the many goals of Project G.O.A.T. is to empower women, Higgins decided that her goat— along with being covered in her signature vibrant colors—needed an udder to represent the unfortunate number of female sex trafficking victims. Higgins went to work on the paper mache udder, turning to the modern craftsman’s greatest educational resource—the internet. She took no advice from her boyfriend Emiliano Settecasi, a fellow Tampa Bay artist and proficient paper mache-r.
“I wanted to learn separately from him, so I did it completely different than how he does it,” Higgins says about her udder creation. Fifty of the Project G.O.A.T pieces will be on display at the 2020 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, separate from Higgins’ personal tent.
With all of the opportunities heading Higgins’ way—opportunities that she’s worked her ass off for—including the “Emerging Artist” nod and her very own goat canvas, Macy Eats Paint is on an upswing with no limit in sight.
With one foot firmly planted in the world of young, DIY artists, and the other grazing the surface of the more traditionally-pathed art world, Higgins is ready to learn from more experienced artists and shrug off doubtful looks that might come her way.
“If you just keep showing up and putting yourself out there, people will begin to respect you,” Higgins tells CL. She says most things with a giggle, but delivers this sentiment with sternness. “Established artists probably have a lot of experience and advice to give. If they don’t discredit me, I won’t discredit them.”
The rest of 2020 brings Higgins more opportunity to spread her eye-catching art throughout the Bay area and beyond. She has a collaborative show with Settecasi at St. Pete’s Mize Gallery this fall, as well as a continuous curator position at The Bunker in Ybor City, among other spots in Tampa. And for Higgins, passing opportunities forward to up-and-coming creators is a vital part of her entire experience as an artist.
“I like giving other artists the opportunity to display. Sometimes it’s their first show ever. That’s really exciting because I think my first solo show was at the Bunker,” Macy tells CL. “I’m helping the cycle continue, but I’m still in the cycle.”
Although Higgins is in the middle of a growth spurt and things are constantly evolving, she finds comfort in the consistency of her artistic style. Her vibrant, fiery colors will always stay with her—no matter what.
“When I see those colors throughout my day, that brightness makes me feel good. It’s subconsciously what I want to put out into the world,” Higgins says with another booming laugh.
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