Swamp Girl Glass’ Solange Ledwith Creates Translucent Beauty

Slidell artist Solange Ledwith gave her gallery an unusual name. It’s called Swamp Girl Glass. She didn’t grow up in a Louisiana swamp, though her house in Slidell does back up to nearby Bayou Bonfouca. After a long nomadic life across the country, the name Swamp Girl is her way of saying she has found a home in Slidell, her mother’s hometown, a place where she can create her art and bring beauty to the community.

Located on Front Street in a small strip mall across from the northeast-bound railroad tracks, Solange’s studio and gallery occupy two separate rooms. One is her sun-filled showroom fronted by large plate-glass windows. On any bright day, sunlight radiates amongst shelves filled with graceful translucent forms of colorful blown glass. Walking about her gallery, one might recall young Tom Wingfield’s last line in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie”: “The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.”

Next door is Solange’s glassblowing studio with all the industrial tools one would find in a glassblowing shop. Three large furnaces stand to one side. The first is filled with molten glass at about 2,000 degrees. Looking through its open door is like looking into a fiery pit of volcanic lava. Solange dips a long, hollow metal pole deep into molten glass, makes a few swirls and extracts a radiant glob the color of a blazing noonday sun.

Next, she rolls the hot glass at the end of the pole on a nearby metal table. The liquid glob with the consistency of honey then takes form as she blows into the opposite end of the pole. The shaping process continues as she sticks the pole into the second furnace called the “Glory Hole” where at 2,400 degrees the hot glass is reheated. The process is repeated over and over until the glass object is finished. When done, the vase, bowl, decanter or decorative piece is then placed in the third drying oven.

Solange, who also teaches glassblowing, begins with hand-drawn designs. “Nothing is done by accident,” she says. “That’s not to say there’re not happy accidents. I’ve made many mistakes and those mistakes have inspired other works.” Her ultimate goal is to reach the perfection seen in the exquisite Venetian and Murano blown glass. One day she hopes to study under a Murano master. When not blowing glass, Solange experiments with a unique form of figurative painting on wood panels, using hot glass to sketch in dark outlines later to be completed with paint and gold leaf.

On the opposite side of her studio, the floor and shelves are filled with dusty, empty wine and liquor bottles that will find new life as blown glass spoon holders, charcuterie boards and various small decorative objects. Although she can’t use this glass for more sophisticated work, salvaging these bottles is her environmental statement.

“Being the drinking culture we are,” she says, “all of that glass goes into the landfill and there’s nothing I can do about that. I love the idea of relieving some of that from the landfill.”

Solange’s journey to Slidell has taken many turns. Born in New Orleans in 1980, Solange grew up moving from place to place with her “nomadic” mother. East Coast, West Coast, they didn’t stay anywhere very long. While in California, however, she did earn degrees in art, concentrating in glassblowing, at Cal State Chico and later Cal State Fullerton. She loved glassblowing.

“I like using my hands,” she says. “I love the exploration and creative side of it. It’s kind of ‘That’s cool, let’s see what happens when I do this. Well cool, let’s see what happens when I do that.’”

In 2014 Solange, then in her 30s, decided she needed a rest from art. So, she joined the Air Force. After six months of sleeping in a tent in a Kuwait desert, she quickly realized her life was in art.

“I wanted to do something that had a purpose, so I joined,” she says. “All it did was bring me back full circle. It wasn’t a bad experience, but I’m saying this sucks. I could be back home doing what I love.”

While in the Air Force, Solange saved enough money to start her business in Slidell. In 2020, she opened her Front Street location. With her mother living nearby, Solange is here to stay.

“I tell my friends I was too New York for California,” she says, “and I was too California for New York. We never quite fit in. And then there was this other thing I could never put my finger on. When I finally moved here, it was like I have a Southern mom. That was the added flavor. There is no place like Louisiana, New Orleans, Slidell. I love it. There is a different feel here, a different kind of character, people are very family oriented. I never experienced that anywhere else.”

In 2023 Solange, along with other artisans, appeared on the Today Show with Hoda Kotb, Jenna Bush Hager and former New Orleans news anchor Karen Swensen with her online company, Life’s About Change.

That “change” has worked well. Solange and her art are home.

For more information, visit swampgirlglassllc.com.

Exhibits

Cajun | Caught Up.
Voices and stories of Coastal Louisiana’s fragile ecosystem and diverse community, through Aug. 9. Historic City Hall & Cultural Center, Lake Charles. visitlakecharles.org

Central | The River is the Road: Paintings by George Rodrigue.
Rodrigue’s use of the river as a metaphor for his Cajun heritage, March 7 through June 21. Alexandria Museum of Art. themuseum.org

NOLA | Delicate Sights: Photography and Glass.
Photography on glass surfaces, through July 14. New Orleans Museum of Art. noma.org

North | Clyde Connell and Pat Sewell.
Work by two renowned North Louisiana artists, permanent show. Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, Shreveport. laexhibitmuseum.org

Plantation | Golden Legacy: Original Art from 80 Years of Golden Books.
History and creative artistry of Little Golden Books, through May 25. LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. lsumoa.org