Mississippi is not a big place or a famous place. Yet somehow, truly amazing people arise here.

William Faulkner and Eudora Welty set their stories here. Bo Diddley, Robert Johnson and Elvis Presley strummed their first guitar chords here. Medgar and Myrlie Evers worked to change the world from right here in Mississippi. Ethel Wright Mohamed and Walter Anderson captured the small world around them in scenes that now reside in the Smithsonian.

Wyatt Waters stands humbly in this famous crowd, a nationally recognized painter and so much more. With little more than a cup of water and a squeeze of pigment he captures a forever frozen feeling, a moment in time deciphered masterfully onto a sheet of Arches paper. Paper that is colored not only with pigment, but also with words and with music.

He is first a painter. A lifelong, everyday, out in the heat or cold or rain, anywhere and everywhere kind of painter. His ability to really see allows us to become a part of his work. This piece of video storytelling takes you below the surface of the painting and the painter.

“Wyatt Waters – Below the Surface,” by School of Journalism and New Media student Emma Harrington, is out now streaming free on YouTube.