Artists /
Spoken Word /
Eden Orlando
Eden Orlando
Eden Orlando has been making books, writing poetry, and creating art for over twenty years. Following her childhood in Venice Beach, Eden studied poetry at University of California, Santa Cruz and received a B.A. in Community Studies, a social justice major, with an emphasis on homelessness studies. She published several poetry books during these years and then spent eight months tending the land and learning the healing arts at The Ojai Foundation. In 2013 she moved to an organic farm in Kauai where she continued to heal spiritually and grow as an artist through poetry, collage, and running her own jewelry business.
Now Eden lives in Ashland, championing art projects for and with the community:
- Using flower medicine as a theme and a metaphor for self-love, romantic love, and the divine, she published My Perfect Offering: A Novel in Poems (2021), complete with acrylic paintings, spiritual collages, and painted dresses.
- The Almeda fire of 2020 particularly influenced her, and she pulled from her years as a literary arts journal editor to create an anthology of writers and artists who had experienced this traumatic event as a tool for collective community healing and to bring more arts to the valley. Twenty-three writers and artists contributed their work to The Rogue Valley Oregon Wildfires Anthology (2021), a 108-page book.
- The Rogue Valley Pollinator Anthology (2022), the second anthology in the series, edited by Eden Orlando, Rebeca Ramm, and Kristina Lefever (volunteer President of PPRV), features the work of 65 contributing writers, artists, and activists on the subject of local, native pollinators.
- In 2022 she also began collaborating with multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, Casey Gina. She is currently recording an album with Casey Gina through tiny choir productions.
- In 2023, she established Fig Eater Press, formerly Paradise Press, as her publishing company for all of her personal art projects.
Eden continues to paint on dresses, make up songs, bind books, garden, and go to therapy. :)