Obata had been traveling California. Painting.
(wet on wet, rain on the gray-green ocean)
when Worth Ryder, painter of the high mountains,
teacher of art at the University of California at Berkeley,
who had run pack trains in the Sierras,
skied in the Swiss Alps,
and studied art in Germany, Italy, and France,
invited him to join that summer artists' journey.

[ blue and green fields of clear color]