I spent a few days walking the streets of downtown St. Pete, capturing just a fraction of the murals (there are over 600 of them) that turn our alleys, buildings, and hidden corners into an outdoor art gallery.

St. Petersburg's Street Art

Last month while visiting my elderly mother, I was going through some old family boxes of photos and found something I didn’t even know existed — a small stack of drawings my father made in 1948 when he was just a boy. My mother told me that I could have them so I put them in a folder and set it aside until just recently.

I’ve seen photos of him as a young adult, but he rarely shared stories of his childhood…however seeing these drawings felt different. It was like meeting a version of him I never had access to — imaginative, innocent, and full of a kind of quiet creativity I never realized he had.

It brought up a lot of emotions. Grief, curiosity, connection. I found myself wanting to understand who he was before he became my father.

I ended up making a short film about what those drawings revealed to me and how they helped me rediscover him in a way I didn’t expect. If anyone here is interested, I’ll leave it below.

https://youtu.be/kHWFeUiO530?si=NubkxdAzzexyiy5j