Fun with Fruit

I love me a good fruit platter, especially a texturally interesting and thoughtfully designed one! Remember that 90s song, "I'm Too Sexy"? That was the song playing in my head the whole time I was shooting the pics for this post.  Ripe, sweet, juicy, and colorful – what's not sexy about fruit?! A quick Google of "the symbolism of fruit in art" reveals that fruit have been stand-in symbols for abundance, vitality, fertility, life, lust, sin, and sensuality (just to name a few) in all kinds of art for cen-tu-ries! Point being, fruit has always been (and will forever be) super sexy! 

Even if you're not as into food as I am, arranging whole and or cut fruit into a still life art installation can be a excellent form of meditation and therapeutic way to create beauty in your environment. It's also a great way to start dabbling in food styling. (Although, if you have an Instagram account, you're probably already an intermediate level food styler.)  I realize not everyone is as obsessed with food and food photos as I am, but playing with your fruit takes almost no skill and just a touch of imagination. You can do it! Everyone can do it! And, it's fun! 

It's all too easy to get caught up in trying to make things look perfect, beautiful, and drool-worthy. Just letting yourself play is so liberating. I've noticed that when I loosen up and play, the beautiful stuff inevitably comes to me and through me! 

Ingredients

1 cara cara orange

1 mandarin

1 fuji apple

1 papaya

1 red d'anjou pear

2 bananas

2 dates

large coconut flakes

Note: Recipe makes one fruit platter for 1-2

Play-by-Play

Gather up the fruit you have on hand, or go shopping for sexy fruit just for this exercise! Choose some props and textiles and arrange your fruit whole. Slice some of the fruit. Experiment with mixing the cut fruit with whole fruit as you go. Don't forget to experiment with arranging the scraps, too! Who knows!? You may even want to arrange yourself a platter of sexy sliced fruit for a snack. Treat yourself!