The 15th Annual Italian Street Painting Festival was held in San Rafael, California this past weekend. It’s a yearly fundraiser to raise money for Youth in Arts, which provides art education opportunities for local students. I took these pictures on Saturday when many of the painting were still unfinished, with the eerie feeling of faces beginning to emerge from the depths of the blacktop. I recorded a short podcast (about 3 minutes long) featuring an interview with a visitor from southern California and a local art teacher who brought students to paint squares. The music in the background is from a fantastic teen a cappella group called “Til Dawn“.

When we look back on the years of our youth, all of us (if we’re honest enough) can find decisions that we’ve made that look incredibly foolish from our mature perspective. We wonder how we could possibly have thought that was a good idea. Yet at the time, we plunged in at full speed, without a moment’s hesitation. Are we better or worse because of these experiences?

In this, my first attempt at podcasting, my friend John tells the story of a very ambitious project that didn’t work out quite as planned…