When the Ground Looked Painted: Finding Meaning in Fallen Oranges

This year, I have been leaning into the idea of following my art. Not telling it where to go, just letting myself enjoy the journey.

Sure, I have ideas I want to express, but they are really just seeds for whatever grows as I work.

When I made the Camellia paintings, I was going through a transformation as an artist. I was leaning back into what made me fall in love with making things in the first place.

Because it was winter, there were not many other flowers blooming on the property we moved to. But the walks with Piper gave me time to slow down and notice things. I hope someday you learn to do that too. The world can feel pretty crazy at times, and I hope you always find moments to slow down and notice the beauty around you.

While I was finishing the Camellia paintings, I kept wondering what I should paint next. It felt like nature was guiding me, and it did not disappoint.

But it did surprise me.

One day, while walking past an orange tree, I noticed that most of the fruit had fallen to the ground. It was the neighbor’s tree, so no one had picked the oranges or cleaned them up.

They had simply spilled across the grass.

The oranges were almost luminous against the deep green of the ground. The sky was grey that day and the muted light made the fruit glow even more.

Immediately, I wanted to paint them.

I did not know how the image connected to the themes I had been exploring, but I realized I did not really care. They were beautiful and that was enough.

So I took a photo and started thinking about how I could push the image toward abstraction. That was part of the reason I had begun changing my approach in the first place.

Of course the painting did not turn out the way I expected.

Life rarely does.

Instead, I focused on two things. I wanted the painting to have a heavy atmosphere, and I wanted the oranges themselves to feel bright and alive.

Eventually, I realized that the oranges could form something like a sun on the ground.

The sun, our great star and the source of life for everything here.

Now things were starting to connect.

Rebirth.

Life emerging again.

But there was also something ironic about it. The oranges had fallen from the tree. Soon they would rot and disappear.

Suddenly, I found myself looking at another cycle.

Life.
Death.
Renewal.

I leaned into the color and the mood of the scene, trying to capture how something can feel full of life even as it fades.

The oranges were dying, but they were also seeds. If the conditions were right they could grow into trees and begin the cycle all over again.

The Meaning of Oranges

Oranges have long been symbols of vitality and renewal. Because citrus trees produce fruit year after year, they often represent abundance, endurance, and the cycles of life.

In art and storytelling, oranges can symbolize the balance between sweetness and impermanence. They are vibrant and full of life, but they also remind us that everything eventually returns to the earth.

I did not think about any of that when I first saw the oranges on the ground.

I simply thought they were beautiful.

But the more I painted them, the more those ideas began to surface.

While I was working on the orange painting something else happened.

One of my friend’s kids noticed a blood orange that had fallen onto our driveway and split open.

She suggested I should clean it up.

Instead I stopped and stared at it.

The peel had split apart and the pale yellow skin made the deep purple flesh inside glow. It was beautiful.

It was also dying.

Pulled into the same cycle.

Of course I had to paint that too.

I made several studies of oranges after that, just following wherever the idea led. One of them was even a digital painting of oranges floating in space, resisting gravity.

Maybe that is our instinct as people.

To resist the forces that try to pull us down. I hope you keep that instinct.

While exploring these paintings, I learned something interesting.

Oranges, much like Camellias, are also associated with rebirth.

A funny coincidence.

Or maybe not.

Sometimes when we slow down and start paying attention, the world has a way of revealing patterns we might otherwise miss.

Around that same time the weather began to shift. The sky stayed grey for days and the fog would roll in thick enough that the world felt quieter somehow.

After noticing rebirth in the Camellias and cycles in the fallen oranges, the fog felt like something different.

It felt like uncertainty.

Like standing in a place where you can only see a few steps ahead.

I did not realize it yet, but that feeling was about to lead me somewhere important.