Stuart artist pairs pictures with words to John Denver song

Janeen Mason translates 'For Baby (For Bobbie)' into children's book

What: Janeen Mason publishing party

When: 5-7:30 p.m. Nov. 13

Where: The Elliott Museum, 825 N.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart

Admission: Free; R.S.V.P. to (772) 225-1961, ext. 107

Online: or

As you make your way into Janeen Mason's studio, you pass a wall filled with perfect little paintings of babies and animals in exquisitely colored exotic landscapes. An imposing elephant family saunters into the picture plane in one.

In another, a puffin family shares a catch of fish. Hedgehogs and mice commune nose to nose, whales breach the sunset-colored waters off an island in Hawaii, and mother and child orangutans sway in a forest canopy.

Off the wall, galumphing underfoot is the gentle Great Dane Mambo. Peering out from her dog bed, Tootsie the Chihuahua looks on as cairn terrier Archie hops up on his little back legs and arfs hello.

Mason settles into the seat in front of her computer and begins to talk about transforming one of John Denver's songs into a picture book for children. She is tall and thin, with short, short hair, wide-lensed glasses and a smile that can light up a room.

The paintings on the wall are the finished art for the pages of "John Denver's For Baby (For Bobbie)," available from Dawn Publications in hard cover ($19.95) and soft ($8.95) at Barnes and Noble starting this week.

"I started with a map," she explained of the multicultural project that became a song-journey to animal mothers and babies throughout the world. The map provides the animals' addresses.

The elephants come from Sri Lanka, where they live at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage; and the hedgehogs are from one of England's busiest wildlife hospitals, Tiggywinkles.

The orangs are from Sumatra, the llamas from Peru and the baby baboons from East Africa. Chinese pandas, Humane Society kittens, monarch butterflies from Mexico, Australian kangaroos, Siberian huskies and baby puffins called pufflings round out the group.

Each page of the book illustrates a line from the song, one of the first Denver wrote and recorded. Conceived as a love song to a woman named Bobbie, its meaning was altered when Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary) sang it as a love song to her newborn daughter.

Mason is a member of the Florida Arts Council, an illustrator of several children's books and a lively member of the Treasure Coast arts community.

Q. How many children's books have you illustrated?

A. Ten, if you count the one I did on bioluminescence with local Genius Grant-MacArthur Award winner, Edie Widder, which is still shopping for a publisher.

Q. What is it about illustrating a children's story that appeals to you?

A. I loved being a kid! And I think childhood is a very important time. The thrill of discovery has stayed with me all of my life. I love the challenge of condensing a concept into a deceptively simple story, translating it with color and line, and "repackaging" it to share with kids!

Q. How did you approach this book with so little instruction from the publisher?

A. I listened to John Denver's song, read the background about how he'd originally written it as a love song for his first true love, a girl named Bobbie. Doesn't that experience just call out your name through all time? First love. That's some powerful juju, indeed The song was a success.

Years later Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary, sang it for her brand new baby girl. It became a love song between a mother and a child. Same words, different meaning.

It occurred to me that I could interpret the lyrics yet another way — the spirit of love that endures. Families love each other the worldwide. The lyrics work in one way for my husband, another way for my children, and yet another way for my mom, who is an Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home.

Q. Were you a John Denver fan?

A. Absolutely! I learned to drive in my Mother's 1963 convertible Chevy Nova right here in Stuart. I think there was only one light in town then. Mom had an eight-track player in that car and I would play John Denver's music at full volume driving to and from the beach! The sounds of his music kindle a brilliant memory of freedom and adventure!

Q. Are the drawings of the people in the book special to you?

A. That's my granddaughter on the cover, my oldest daughter and granddaughter on the title page, and one of my grandsons inside.

Q. Your use of color is absolutely magnificent. Did you have special training in color?

A. Yes. I do have special training in color. I trained in the use of color underwater. When I put on my mask, snorkel and fins, and noodle around on a reef I am transported. My breathing slows down, my heart rate changes and my mind starts taking mental snapshots. I think, I've got to remember that! Burnt sienna next to lavender facing into dark purple and surrounded by chartreuse! The colors on a reef are like nowhere else. When I need inspiration I find it in the colors on a coral reef.

Q. How did you consider John Denver's view of the world when creating the book?

A. John Denver believed that everyone can make a difference, so he put his feelings into action. In his lifetime he campaigned for social and environmental causes, including Feed the Children, The Hunger Project and Friends of the Earth. These were not difficult concepts for me to get my arms (or paintbrush) around.

Q. What do all the cultures featured in the book have in common?

A. I saw a PBS special featuring an anthropologist who'd studied cultures from prehistoric to contemporary, from the darkest corners of the jungle to congested urban areas. Cultures which would not have the opportunity to meet, or share ideas. I was fascinated to learn the number one thing we all share and have throughout time is we all need to know that someone is going to miss us if we don't come home at night.

Q. What will children learn from this book?

A. That love is universal.