Note: This is the first in a series of posts from Daniel on the topic of “Why I paint the Arkansas Landscape.” In this first post, he writes about the influence of the Mississippi River on his work.   I came back to southeastern Arkansas in 1981 and soon got settled in Dermott. After getting organized at the high school there, I was soon drawing what I saw around me which was the Delta. The Mississippi Delta, that is.  I could feel that river for the first time in my life.  And that’s kind of odd since Monticello, my hometown, was only 30 miles further west.  But Monticello was in the hills and Dermott  had been flooded in the ’27 Flood.  In the 80’s, I remember watching thunderheads boiling up over the river…just a few miles east.