'Let sleeping dogs lie' you say? There they are, sleepy, sleepy banana peel dogs at the end. 'Dog catcher,' reveals a jalapeño dachshund catching a squash Frisbee in midair. 'Dog bowl,' contrary to what you might envision, is a dog made out of a radish, with a black olive on its paw, poised to topple banana-tip bowling pins. 'Chilly dog,' crafted from a potato, shivers next to a mushroom snowman. Not only are the doggies themselves endearing and clever (the broccoli-tufted French poodle is pure genius), but the wordplay and visual punch lines are terrific as well.

Yes, Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers ( Play with Your Food, How Are You Peeling?, One Lonely Seahorse) are back, with one of their best efforts to date.

'And my family is very healthy because we eat the cast.If you think living, breathing puppies are cute, wait until you see this fabulous book of photographs of fruit-and-vegetable dogs. 'Im always finding another role for a vegetable,' Freymann says. The story requires some complicated composites of produce. Freymann is working on Gus and Button, due in September from Scholastic Press. How Are You Peeling? illustrates emotions. Play With Your Food is a romp through a garden of cute critters.

His fragile creations are pictured in several books. 'I shop on the way to the photographers studio,' he says. Im just nudging it to something it resembles.'įreymann works improvisationally: his sculptures are usually determined by serendipitous finds in the produce aisle. The characters come out of the vegetable or fruit. 'The colors and forms are so wonderful that they give you everything you need. Using an X-acto knife, he deftly transforms garden-variety produce into emotive faces and amusing animals that he enhances with peppercorn or black-eyed pea eyes, beet-juice mouths, or corn-kernel teeth. Freymann tried a few animals and 'discovered I was good at cutting food.' These whimsical sculptures fashioned wholly from fruits and vegetables are the handiwork of Saxton Freymann, a New York artist.įreymann, now dubbed the Calder of Cabbages and the Rodin of Rutabagas, had embarked on a 'quiet career' as a painter until 1997 when he answered publisher Joost Elffers call for someone who could carve food beyond the rose-radish table garnish. Theyre all part of an exotic menagerie that may change forever the way you look at produce. Pea pod caterpillars, bok choy buffalo, pear bears, melon tortoises, banana octopuses.

Food Play by Saxton Freymann