Artists Are Drawn Into New Territory : Art: Sculptor Sarah Perry’s ‘If’ launches a series of illustrated children’s books published by the Children’s Library Press and J. Paul Getty Museum.

If toes were teeth, they would wiggle between a little girl’s lips when she smiles.

If mice were hair, their bodies would swarm around a child’s head and their tails would dangle like tendrils.

If dogs were mountains, their noses would form a jagged river bank while their bodies turned into wooded slopes.

Such are the improbable ideas and images in Sarah Perry’s new children’s book, simply titled “If.” For each pair of pages, she has illustrated a phrase--”If butterflies were clothes . . . ,” “If fish were leaves . . . ,” “If hummingbirds told secrets . . . “--with an imaginative picture that completes the thought.

With its sparkling watercolor illustrations and verbal flights of fancy, the colorful publication is an abrupt change of pace for an artist who has taught welding at Otis College of Art and Design and is known as a sculptor of spooky little assemblages and life-size apes.

“I can just imagine the faculty at Otis scoffing and snubbing their noses,” Perry says. “But life is so short. I have to do what works, and this is creative.”

As Perry takes the plunge into unfamiliar territory, her book launches a new series of illustrated children’s books, created by artists and jointly published by the Children’s Library Press and the J. Paul Getty Museum. “If” will be followed in the spring by “Morris and the Kingdom of Knoll,” combining writer T.L. Hill’s story about a dragon with drawings by Jeff Colson, and “The Red String,” a text-less book conceived by writer Margot Blair and illustrated by Greg Colson.

Manuscripts and illustrations are complete for four other volumes: “The Ballad of Schmee” by Ron Griffin, “Trout in a Stump” by Deanna Thompson, “Johnny Jump Up and Everything” by Thomas Eatherton and “Rugel Dafdier: The Boy Who Knew How to Listen” by Jim Eller. In addition to these works by Southern Californians, British artist Richard Long and New Yorker Lawrence Weiner are dreaming up books for the press.

The ambitious program is the brainchild of Jerry Sohn, Children’s Library Press’ publisher, and editor-in-chief Teresa Bjornson. With the dual purpose of producing high-quality, art-oriented books for children and providing an outlet for artists’ untapped talents (as well as a much-needed source of revenue), they set out to find relatively little-known artists who had not established themselves as illustrators but were suited to the job.

The Getty involvement developed when John Walsh, director of the Getty Museum, heard about the fledgling press and passed the word to Christopher Hudson, the museum’s head of publications. Planning for the 1997 opening of the Getty Center in Brentwood, which will include a new Getty Museum and bookstore, Hudson was looking for ways to expand the Getty’s children’s book list.

“We were planning children’s books that are based on the museum’s collection,” Hudson says. “This is another good way to introduce children and young adults to the world of art and artists.”

Persuading artists to take a break from their usual work and create a book for kids hasn’t been easy, Sohn and Bjornson say, but the success of “If” is encouraging. The first printing of 5,000 sold out quickly, the second printing of 4,000 is going fast and a third is being organized so there will be an ample supply of books for Christmas. Sold in the Getty Museum’s bookshop in Malibu, the book is being distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Windsor Books of Oxford, England. “If” will also appear in a Greek edition, Hudson says.

All of which has put Perry in a state of near-shock. “What’s so amazing is that the book is mass-produced,” she says. “I’m used to doing one-of-a-kind sculpture.”

Hudson attributes the book’s popularity to “the magic of the pictures themselves,” Perry’s artistic technique, the simplicity of the easy-to-translate text and “an interactive approach” that spurs the imagination. “You find yourself thinking, ‘If this’ or ‘If that,’ ” he says. Indeed, the only complete sentence in the book--on the final page--invites continuing participation: “If this is the end . . . then dream up some more!”

Sohn and Bjornson had intended to start their press with a book composed of one-sentence stories and illustrations by several artists. That project never got off the drawing board, but it gave Perry an idea that led to “If.”

She was asked to participate in the collaboration on the strength of a highly detailed drawing of Jimi Hendrix she had done as a student, which Bjornson noticed during a visit to Perry’s studio. But the idea of creating even a small part of a children’s book was “totally alien,” Perry says. “I hadn’t drawn in 10 years.” But she accepted the challenge and spent a full two weeks on a single illustration of the phrase “If kids had tails . . . ,” which became the first component of her own book.

As ideas began to flow, she rediscovered her love of drawing and taught herself to paint with watercolors. She picked up speed, but spent a year working on “If”--while juggling several part-time jobs.

Despite initial doubts, Perry has found the project so satisfying that she now balances sculpture with drawing and is already at work on another book. “I’ve got something I’m dying to do, but I can’t talk about it yet,” she says.

* Perry will present a free slide lecture, followed by a book signing, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Information and reservations: (310) 458-2003.