Erica Swanson, mathematician, educator, Jazz Fest artist.

By Veronica Cross

During her employment as a full-time math educator in New Orleans, Erica Swanson would merge her love of numbers and art. Swanson adapted an approach to her drawing and painting that used ratios, applying principles of both the golden mean and the Fibonacci sequence to her layouts. Skulls became her signature motif, asking the viewer to consider that the compositional balance of Beauty can also be measured numerically, a device used in Renaissance and Classical periods. As her artwork developed, she became more active in local art markets and ultimately left her education job to prioritize her studio practice. As she leaned into her painting and drawing, Swanson found that working in the studio can be isolating, so she sampled pottery classes at London Clay Works and found community and a new way to express her ideas.

Erica Swanson established her Etsy store EricaLeeArtNOLA in 2015, offering a mix of paintings, pottery, and mixed glass and has sold her artwork and pottery at various local night art markets, Freret Fest, Po Boy Fest, and New Orleans Clayfest. In conversation, Swanson shares how her foundational experiences as an art vendor at the annual Christkindlmarkt at the Deutsches Haus and the Crescent City Blues BBQ Arts Market, both managed by The Ella Project’s Gene Meneray, set a standard for well-organized and supportive infrastructure for artist-vendors. These are experiences that she would build on, ultimately inspiring her first application to the Louisiana Marketplace at the 2026 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

In Swanson’s kitchenware pottery, she finds inspiration in stories from customers such as a mother’s garlic keeper that conjures the warmth of home life. In addition to her functional kitchenware and New Orleans-centric pieces such as bead mugs, Swanson will also debut two new pottery lines as her “primary artistic expression” at Jazz Fest. In her first new pottery line, Whispering Gray, black mason stain is pressed into porcelain clay, producing different tones of gray on wheel-thrown vases. Using a traditional cut-out technique called the Devil’s Work or gui gong, she creates organic, intricate designs in this line of large porcelain vases and bowls. These are then glazed with “snowflake”, which produces a crackle effect when fired in the kiln. Swanson’s second line, Trace Path, features small vessels, bowls, and platters. Employing the centuries-old sgraffito technique, she carves wheel-thrown white clay through a layer of black slip that is finished with a teal “lagoon” glaze to amplify the carving.

You can find Erica Swanson at Tent F in the Louisiana Marketplace at the Second Weekend of JazzFest.