Orquidia Violeta

Orquidia Violeta is a Salvadoran-American textile artist. Growing up in a dirt-floored farmhouse in Central America, she remembers the embroidered pink dress her mother sent her from the US. Orquidia crossed the US border as a six-year-old refugee and went on to earn an Associate of the Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Exposure to labor exploitation in the garment industry led her to co-found LaborFruit — a prominent artist-cooperative storefront and gallery in Los Angeles specializing in clothing as artform. Living in Portland Oregon, Orquidia continues to challenge herself as a textile artist, exploring new methods and mediums, such as machine and hand embroidery, knitting, weaving, appliqué, beadwork, fabric dyeing, soft sculpture, painting and drawing.