What's Up With Oranges & Dunedin?
From the 1800s to around about 1950 Dunedin, FL was well known for growing oranges as was a lot of Florida and still is today. The Skinner & Douglas families were of the most prominent names in the orange business. The fruit crates used to transport the produce were designed with beautiful drawings of oranges.
Local artist Steven Spathelf collected these fruit crates and was inspired by them for years before one early morning, April 13th, 2009 to be exact, Spathelf and some colleagues painted several different oranges around downtown Dunedin.
Not knowing what the reaction would be Spathelf was surprised at how seemingly overnight his paintings had become the talk of the town. Shortly there after media outlets from all over traveled all the way to the small town of Dunedin asking the same question. What is up with all these oranges?
It wasn’t long before Spathelf confessed and is now well known in the community as the Dunedin Orange Artist. He has painted hundreds of oranges (by request now) on mailboxes, houses, businesses and more. You can check out his orange paintings and his other work by clicking here.
Dunedin also now hosts an annual event, The Dunedin Orange Festival, usually in the first part of July. However, this year (2020) it was canceled but is scheduled to return in 2021.
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