Letters

I have always loved writing letters. In letters, I can say sweeter things that may feel weird or out of place to say in a regular conversation. I often write to important adults in my life or to people I hardly know. Slowly, I’ve been writing more to friends my age. They can be half a page to nine pages. In high school, I loved to bake cookies for people. I’d make cookies or letters and sometimes both, for my friends and teachers.

Letter to a Friend, November 2025

I found out my friend can read cursive so I wrote him another letter so he would have a constitutional, fancy, snazzy letter from me.

Birthday Letter to a Friend, October 2025

This was a letter for a friend’s birthday. It was really fun to do and made me extremely happy as it was apparently the first handwritten letter he had ever received. Since I adore handwritten letters, and he’s an adult, I was shocked to hear he had never gotten a handwritten letter before, and was so happy I got to be the first.

For a gift, I got him a pocket/Swiss knife because he likes hiking. I found engraved options and got his name and a phrase engraved on each. I chose to engrave values and goals I have when it comes to my friendships, “To love and serve in honor” and “To challenge and nurture”.

I take a Sunday night class from my church that teaches more in-depth about the Bible, your identity in Christ, and Christian culture. We talked about loving one another in honor, and I felt that was super relevant to me for the incredible number of new friends I had made in this time period.

I definitely played with it for my own entertainment before I gave it away :) He also had never owned a knife until these.

Birthday Letter to a Friend, October 2025

This was a letter for a friend’s birthday. I tried to draw a picture of us on the front, but I couldn’t get it right, so I erased it, taped a new sheet of paper on top, and scribbled his name. On birthday letters, I like that I can say the sweeter things that feel too random or intimate to say out loud.

I got him cookies (not photographed) that I know he loves and he often gets when I take him to the grocery store. I also got him incense with a holder, which he had talked about really enjoying in a past conversation. On the holder, I laser printed his name and happy birthday.

Birthday Letter to a Friend, October 2025

This was a letter for a friend’s birthday giving my gratitude.

Letter to a Friend, July 2025

This was a letter to a friend giving my gratitude and encouragement. I was very scatterbrained and added flaps and arrows to get in everything I wanted to say.

Letters to Nica Chicas, July 2025

I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua, and my life did a complete 180. I began healing in more ways than one. I gained so many friendships and a new fire for the Lord. That story is its own conversation, but when I got back, I wrote to all the girls and one other friend whom I had all gained from this trip.

Photos by David Driskill and personal archive

Letter to Rob & Regina, Summer 2025

I was spending quite a bit of time in my friend’s house. I slept over a lot and ate a lot of their food. Their mom also bought us treats when she didn’t have to, and they had always taken me along to their family dinners. My house was a bit stressful at this time, and I didn’t share that, but I appreciated the second place to hang out and stay when I wanted. They had given a lot to me, and so I wanted to give something back. A letter was an obvious choice, but I had also remembered a Lego set the father mentioned he’d been wanting for a while, and the mother was in the beginning stage of a crocheting/knitting hobby. So I got the Lego set and some yarn too.

(Items unphotographed)

Letters to the Marine, 2024

The dinosaur series is letters to a friend while he was in boot camp for the Marines. He loves dinosaurs and I love fries. Some are references to when we played Call of Duty. I blew him up with trip mines A LOT and I won. We also used a specific gun called The Purifier. It’s essentially a flamethrower. You feel powerful.

Other times, I drew references to boot camp stories he told me or old conversations we had.

I took care in the wax stamps and pressed flowers. He told me his bunkmates would gather to see my doodles and his higher-ups would complain saying, “Who keeps writing you,” and make Harry Potter jokes.

I visited him at his school house in Twenty-Nine Palms in California and drew a sticker on my carry-on to make it look different than other peoples’.

Letters and Gifts to Teachers, 2023

This was for a teacher who had a lot of personal struggles during my senior year of high school. He was also the most upset when the senior prank was taken too far. 

I was not involved in the prank at all, but I felt bad about how it left my teachers' property and feelings. I had already thought about writing him a letter as his class was the one class of all my classes I was intrigued by, English. I gathered some friends who I thought would want to write him too. We wrote general notes to all our teachers to apologize for the prank. Even though none of us were involved, we all felt bad about it. 

We all wrote my English teacher letters (mine was the coolest). He showed us Dead Poets Society, which I loved, and made it the cover. His letter was a few pages of what I appreciated about his class and an apology for the prank.

I wasn't emotionally close to this teacher and none of my friends knew him too well, but we wanted to do a small gift for him. Or I did. I asked a lot of our teachers and emailed back and forth with his teacher-best-friend, who was out of town. We were going to get him FC tickets, but didn't know his schedule, so we settled for a gift card. 

They were received very well :)

Letters and Gifts to Teachers, 2017, 2022

These letters were to two of my teachers in middle school. The drawings on the right were from the end of my 7th-grade year, 2017. The drawings on the left are from the end of my Junior year, 2022. I wrote to them because I wanted them to know I loved them and I appreciated them as teachers and the people they were. One of my teachers left their drawing on their bulletin board for years.

The drawings in 2022 were when I was thinking of how I would be a senior the next year, and I knew I was going to have to leave them. They had offered me a lot of support, and I was nervous about what adult I would have if I am sad in college and needed someone to cry to. I was growing sad about how our relationships weren’t the same as they were when I was their student, and didn’t want to restart new relationships to have that.

As their student, I often baked them cookies at random times. Even when I moved to high school. One of my teachers had two babies, and I saw these Warmies animals at the store and decided I wanted to give them as a gift.

These letters talked about a lot of different memories and feelings I had, including our memories. I talked again about what I love about them and thanked them for what they have given me while being a student at Clark Montessori. They were the longest letters I had written. Each stretches about 10 pages.

The choice of lions and pandas was about what I felt matched them as people or visually. The babies were for the paternal or maternal role they lightly played for their students.

Letters to Work Friends, 2022

These letters were short letters to friends I had made while painting the Sam Adams: “Cheers to Cincy” mural. I wrote a few other friends as well, however, they didn’t have illustrated covers.

I wrote about what I liked about them and the strengths I saw in them. I’m still loosely connected to them and even see one of them now and then.

Letter to Acquaintance, 2020

This letter I wrote a friend I had made on my bus in my freshman year. Our schools shared a bus and he was also at my bus stop. We had made decent friends. We had a hard time understanding each other as he had just immigrated from Egypt. I wrote him a letter in Arabic and English saying how nice it was to be friends. I knew he liked wolves and so I made that the cover.