Just as the words say, my friend and collaborator in this project Dave Moore was riding on a European train after visiting a Dutch art museum, and his moment of vision was that the clouds he was looking at out the train window were, in some way, the same clouds that the museum painters had portrayed. He wrote a somewhat longer set of words about that thought. I edited them down and added the music.
That was an audacious thing to do. Dave allowed it, something I’m grateful for. Not just because I’m rather fond of the resulting piece, but because this was an early part of my journey to transform other people's words and to set them among music.
Close listeners, you may hear in the catalog of museum painters the name “VanVliet”. Yes, there was a fine 17th century Dutch painter by that name. A few hundred years later a Californian added “Van” in front of his family name of Vliet, possibly seeking a connection to that painter. Audacity! Run paint run!