SOFIA OLEXIA-DAIGLE
New Orleans, LA
2026-2027 Grant Practicing Artist in Glassblowing and Ceramics
Scholarship 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026
Sofia Olexia-Daigle is a multidisciplinary artist from Louisiana working primarily in ceramics and glass. Her artwork is shaped by personal and regional histories such as the wetlands surrounding New Orleans and Cajun identity. She explores the resilience of communities in south Louisiana and the evolving future of New Orleans by using water as a recurring symbol in her work, representing both destruction and renewal. Much of her work centers on women’s lived experiences as daughters, mothers, professionals, and caregivers, while also acknowledging the societal barriers they navigate. She combines clay and blown glass to reflect on the relationship between body, landscape, and memory, incorporating imagery of marsh environments and wildlife as symbols of feminine strength, resilience, and transformation.
Olexia-Daigle will utilize this grant to support her practice in glassblowing and ceramics through connections, travel, and independent research. In Summer 2026 she studied under David Licata at Pittsburgh Glass where she explored creating glass flowers and trees. The course introduced her to flameworking and opened new possibilities in combining glass and ceramics. She plans to use this funding to apply for artist calls in New Orleans and beyond. She is partnering with Tulane University, her alma mater, by volunteering to clean the ceramics studio in exchange for studio access. Olexia-Daigle studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tulane University in Spring 2026 with a minor in Strategy, Logistics, and Analytics, and a minor in Teaching, Learning, and Training.
She interned with YAYA’s resident glassblower James Vella and studied at Laguna~B, a glassware company in Murano, Italy. She has presented live ceramics demonstrations at the Jobs for the Future Conference and at the unveiling of Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Walt Disney World and has exhibited her work in galleries at Tulane University, YAYA, and Longue Vue House and Gardens. She was also a member of the Youth Artist Movement through the Arts Council New Orleans, contributing to several collaborative public art projects, including the Four Seasons Hotel Project with Rontherin Ratliff (2021), the Unframed mural on Baronne Street with BMIKE and the Helis Foundation (2019), the Living with Water mural at the New Orleans Hostel with Carl Joe Williams (2019), a digital mural displayed at LUNA Fête with Carl Joe Williams and Andrew Wade Smith (2018), and the Transportation Mural with Ayo Scott, currently displayed at the University of New Orleans (2024).
She first joined YAYA in 2013.
All works are copyright of the artist.