We recently had the chance to connect with Xanya Davis and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Xanya, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Who are you learning from right now?
Right now, I am learning from my community—my friends, tenants, collaborators, and peers. Each person is a mirror, teaching me daily about love, creativity, and the sacred labor of sustaining a vision. I am constantly inspired by those around me to be my wildest, rawest self. They are directly responsible for so much of my growth.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Xanya, also known as Xani, Loc Goddess X, and Big X Thee Goddess. At my core, I am a creative—an artist, a curator, and a dreamer—but professionally, I am a loctician, a business owner, and a model.
Through Loc Goddess X, my loc studio, I honor the hair as the Crown, a sacred vessel for ancestral magick, and of course as an art and a science. Each appointment becomes an act of self-love, that often extends into conversation, deep reflection, and genuine community. My clients are family. I’ve talked about it in my last interview, but this commitment to artistry and connection, led me to eventually expand into Higher Vibes Studios, a creative hub that houses local small businesses and serves as a venue for community events, offering organizers, curators, creatives, as well as, beauty and wellness practitioners like myself, a safe haven and stepping stone to elevate and evolve.
But the heart of Higher Vibes is really Bring Back the Weird (BBTW), our community-driven creative movement and collective, dedicated to preserving Austin’s uniquely weird spirit. Through festivals, markets, and collaborative events, BBTW celebrates eccentricity, amplifies underrepresented voices, and insists that culture is not a commodity, but a living inheritance we are charged to nurture and protect. That ethos now extends into the newest addition to the Higher Vibes compound: Vibehaus, a gallery and shop that brings together local art, handmade goods, creative reuse and recycling, coworking, and events.
Modeling and performance also live within this story. Whether through fashion, photography, poetry, or movement, allowing my whole self to be my medium is another way I express myself when pencils and paints aren’t enough.
Sorry! It’s getting harder and harder to keep my introductions breif!
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I love this question, because I am constantly looking to shed what no longer serves me to make room for more blessings. Currently I’m releasing the version of myself that lived for approval—the self who only accepted perfection, and took anything less as a personal failure. I’m releasing the part of me that believed detachment was strength, and isolation was safety. I’m releasing the parts of me attached to comfort and convenience, especially where they shown up as victimhood and complacency. Those habits have helped me survive, yes, but also act as a deterrent to my success. They shielded me when I wasn’t yet strong enough to stand fully in my power, and while I appriciate these parts of me to a degree, it’s absolutley time to release them. The armor I built to endure a difficult life, has hardened into a cage. And to step into my highest self, I must escape that prison. I must embrace the messiness of love, the vulnerability of community, and the radical freedom of imperfection.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
One of my favorite quotes comes from Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves:
“Passion has little to do with euphoria, and everything to do with patience. It’s not about feeling good. It’s about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root, pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”
I found this quote as a teen, and it reshaped how I understood passion (and compassion, which translates to “to suffer together”). Passion isn’t found in the high of achievement—it’s revealed in the low places, when failure, grief, or disappointment strip away the illusion of ease and peace. Success could never teach me that, because if passion depended on success, it would collapse the moment I fell short. Which, as a human being, is inevitable. Suffering, on the other hand, has been the teacher that refuses to flatter me. It has forced me to confront what I care about enough to withstand rejection, exhaustion, and loss. Success may be the evidence others see, but my resilience, clarity, and transformation come only from enduring what was meant to break me.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a cultural value you protect at all costs?
Community. I always knew it mattered, but the past few years have shown me its true weight. When everything else fails, when systems crumble, when the world turns uncertain, what remains is the circle of people you’ve built around you. For some, that circle is rooted in family, faith, or the block they grew up on. In Austin especially, community is the heartbeat of our culture. It’s in the way we gather, the way we shop, the way we keep small businesses and eccentric spaces alive (KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD!). The Austin I fell in love with was stitched together by communities, places, and people, who felt deeply human, filled with reminders that belonging is possible, even for the most othered.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What light inside you have you been dimming?
The light I dimmed the longest was my artistic light. For as long as I can remember, people saw it in me. But poverty taught me to prioritize stability over expression, and the myth of the “starving artist” convinced me creativity could never sustain me. I also believed for a long time, that creativity wasn’t impactful enough to satisfy my desire to improve the human condition. But life revealed the opposite: art is a tool of resistance. Our authentic expression is rebellion—especially in a society that demands we assimilate and homogenize for easy herding. I came to see that creativity is revolutionary. And it is MY birthright. My hope is that by honoring my own light, I give others permission to ignite theirs, and to recognize that art and creativity are invaluable assets in our fight for collective liberation.
Contact Info:
- Website: highervibesatx.com, locgoddessx.glossgenius.com, bringbacktheweird.com
- Instagram: @highervibesatx, @locgoddessx @bringbacktheweird
Image Credits
Eric Coleman Photography
