We asked some of the most talented folks in the community to talk to us about projects they’ve worked on that they still think about, projects that really meant something. Have you had such an experience? Are you looking for inspiration for your next project? Check out the stories below, they are exciting, entertaining, and most importantly – inspiring.

Mitchell Brown

The most meaningful creative project I’ve worked on so far has been the short that I wrapped last summer and have been editing since, titled ‘The Minnesota Goodbye.’ It’s presented in the vehicle of a return-to-form noir thriller about a married couple working for a crime syndicate in prohibition era Saint Paul, MN—but at its core, it’s a drama about interpersonal connection, communication, feminism, patriarchy, and the differences between inner confidence and outward strength; an adult’s coming of age tale, that point in our lives when we process the experiences of our teens and 20s, when our youthful naivete begins to dissipate, and we start to understand the world in a new way. Read more>>

Paula Walters Parker

The most meaningful project I have worked on today is my Wailing Women project. What makes it meaningful to me is that it was the genesis of exploring a more generative theme that I was not expecting when I first began working on it. From that one drawing I have explored historic and contemporary social political issues, themes of culture and identity, loss and grief, and survival. Read more>>

Qianhui Ma

The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is ChowFun StandUp—a Mandarin-language stand-up comedy show produced by CrazyLaugh Comedy, the very first Chinese stand-up club in NYC, D.C., and L.A. We filmed it over two weeks at SinoVision New York, and I was part of the on-site crew, managing one of the main camera setups. I also supported the show behind the scenes—doing performers’ makeup and helping with logistics. But honestly, what made it so meaningful wasn’t the technical work. It was what the show stood for. Read more>>

Zachary Thayer

I have been working on a video about connection. It all centers around a card game called were not really strangers (WNRS) that my now partner of 5 years showed me when we first started talking. Over the past 5 years I have played the game with family members, friends etc. I recorded the gameplay and have made notes on how playing the game affected our relationship. I have not completed the project but it is a deep dive into human connection. It is planned to be a 40 minute to 120 minute video that will be released on Youtube. Read more>>

Kera Gibbs

been the art collective of Chronic Presents. It has been a passion project of mine for the past few years relating to dancers and movement artist that live alongside chronic illness and accessibility needs. This became something so obvious and relevant in my community because there’s a lack of visibility and platforming of nonconventional dancers. BIPOC and LGBTQIA folks especially suffer under the weight of preference and conventionality. As a person that struggles with chronic illness, and is a passionate dancer, it was so important for me to find a space where I felt like I could belong and thrive. Unfortunately, I could not find that space in my community so, I decided to create something where we could be. Read more>>

Alex Runions

I would have to say that the most meaningful project that I’ve worked on is my current album project, “Above the Clouds and on the Ground” which was released on March 7, 2025. This album is more heartfelt and is focused around growth, love and loss. I got sober about five years ago, I got married, and we have a child so a lot of the writing is focused around these new experiences and changes in my life. There is a shift in my sound away from a pop country type of style to more of an Americana/folk style of writing and production. It has been an amazing and fulfilling project and I couldn’t be more proud of it. Read more>>

A. Piriyapokanon

Every project I’ve worked on holds meaning in its own way, and it’s hard to choose just one. But if I had to, “Right Before Your Eyes” would be the one that’s stuck with me the most. It was the first time I tackled a political narrative, specifically the enforced disappearances of Thai activists. These were stories meant to stay buried. I grew up surrounded by. the mass media that looked away, that erased instead of remembered. Making that film was a shift in my practice. I realized I didn’t want to use media to distract, I wanted to use it to confront. Read more>>

“IZA” The Artist

project that I’m constantly working on. Wake & Make started as a mantra I would share almost everyday. The intention behind it was initially to motivate myself to wake up and create.
It soon became something that inspired fellow creatives to do the same no matter what their craft was and it just continued to grow from there. It lead to hoodies and more merch being made for creatives everywhere. Read more>>

Zachary Haskell

A few years ago, my friend Moon Han was gracious enough to let me shoot and edit several music videos for an album she recorded. Around the time of this shoot I was new to editing and I was still becoming familiar with the workflow of Premier Pro. One of the cameras we rented for the shoot had a spherical, transparent lens cover with minuscule scratches on it, but I didn’t realize the scratches were there until after I offloaded the footage. Basically, a third of the footage I captured was unusable because the scratches were just too prominent. This forced me to recycle footage from the other cameras and find creative editing solutions. The whole project took about 5 months, much longer than it would have if I had noticed the scratches, but what I learned in that time was invaluable. Read more>>

Maxx Moses

I’d have to say the most meaningful project i’ve worked on is my most recent project @ UCSD. Late 2024 I was contacted by Kaia Brown who stated they were looking for a muralist to do one or a series of murals at the newly established Eighth College. We decided to meet up at the Sankofa building. They chose me because of prior works @SDSU’s Black Resource Center and were impressed. Sankofa is one of the African Andinkra symbols from Ghana, which means “go back and get it”. Ironically this theme was very present in my life. Creatively it was time for me to go back and get all the styles, technics, and tools that i have amassed over the years and present them in a work of art cohesively. Read more>>

Jason Peguero

The most meaningful project I worked on was my short documentary film Legacy: The Life of Canto Robledo. It took over six years to finish, since I funded the whole thing myself and had to wear a lot of hats. I directed, co-produced, and edited the entire project. The film is about Canto Robledo, a blind boxing trainer and manager who worked out of Pasadena. I interviewed his son, Joseph Robledo, along with a handful of family and friends who knew him best. I was given hundreds of old photos dating back to the 1930s and about eight hours of home footage, which I digitized on my own computer. It wasn’t easy. There were plenty of speed bumps along the way, but when the film was finally done and it screened at the Pasadena International Film Festival in 2022, I couldn’t help but feel proud of what I had accomplished. Read more>>

Dorian Wolf

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is Action Cat Zine, a music and media arts publication based in Nashville, TN. It was founded in 2022 by some of my peers as a way to uplift primarily women and LGBTQ+ artists in the Southeast U.S. I got involved from the start as a journalist for Issue One. I had the opportunity to write an article on the experimental noise band Spirit of the Beehive and photograph their show at Saturn in Birmingham, AL—it was an electrifying experience that sparked my love for the D.I.Y. music scene and covering shows. Read more>>

Monica

The most meaningful project I have worked on was the building of WITS HQ. We have had the Writing in the Schools Program for a long time, and one year, we realized we could expand it and bring students to the press and teach them how to make books. Read more>>

Reenita Hora

I’m deeply connected to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre through my late grandfather’s vivid memories of the aftermath he witnessed as a young boy in Amritsar. This connection also inspired a character I portrayed in a related play during my teenage years, igniting my passion for storytelling—especially after reading Erich Segal’s Love Story. That’s when I knew I wanted to craft my own epic love story, a dream that solidified further after watching Titanic. Read more>>

Nhyiraba Bartels

Firstly, every project I’ve worked is meaningful to me. The fact that someone trusts me enough to give me a project or idea to execute fully is a beautiful thing. A thing I cherish with each session. However, if I had to pick one I’d have to pick my first graduation shoot. Her name is Kyla. She was a friend from class. Though she didn’t have much vision for what she wanted her big day to look like and I definitely didn’t have the right lighting to execute a grad shoot. But the trust she had instilled in me, made me feel like I could do it. And that trust builds confidence to something else, do something bigger. And even though, now I have much better graduation portraits in my portfolio, but my first will always be the most meaningful. These are pictures that will be kept forever and shared with loved ones. To be able to be apart of that is everything to me. Read more>>

Kim Sorrelle

I was diagnosed with breast cancer and 4 months later my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away 6 weeks after that. And mainly questioned some things, with this new life being tengo 40 And wanting to make sure I was doing life right, I question the true meaning of love. So I devoted a year to search for it. Most of the year I spent in Haiti which added a whole layer of uniqueness. I was chased by a motorcycle gang, slept outside with tarantulas, snake, and chupacabras, but I learned that love is not what we’ve been told it is. And what I learned about love changed my life. I’m now on a mission to help the world. Understand love and love each other. Read more>>

Fernanda Neu

My latest film, The Mixtape for the End of the World, holds a special place in my heart. It’s a project deeply inspired by my little cousin, who has been one of my greatest supporters throughout my filmmaking journey. He has autism, and I wanted to create a film that he could see himself in—a story where someone like him takes the main character role. Read more>>

D1C3 & Prophetnyc

The most meaningful project we’ve worked on is our latest short musical film, Devils. The film explores the interconnected stories of two men—one grappling with the pain of loss, the other battling alcoholism and drug abuse. These struggles deeply affect their ability to function in everyday life, and the film captures how these issues manifest emotionally and behaviorally. Read more>>

Jihada Brown

Last year in 2024, I almost stopped creating. I was in a tough space and didn’t see my way through, above, below, nor around it. I had to make a decision – do I create from authenticity or approval? I made the decision to create authentically from my soul. So, I started having conversations and turning those conversations into works of art. My work has started to resonate with people in a way I have always hoped it would, one person at a time. Read more>>

Vanessa Wenwieser

Some of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on have been with my friend and artist Tatiana Moura, from Brazil. We produce artworks and curate projects together of socio-political importance, often for Women Rights as well as specifically Women’s Rights in, for example, Afghanistan or the Women, Life Freedom movement which broke out following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, or LGBTQ+ rights, to name but a few. Read more>>

Alfredo Achar

There are three very meaningful projects I have been lucky to be a part of. The first is The GuadaLAjara Film Festival (GLAFF) which is a sister festival to the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara in Mexico, but GLAFF takes place in Los Angeles. I am in the main board of producers and work as a Programming Director in the selection and curation of the festival’s official selection of films, short films, premieres, events, master classes and honorees each year. GLAFF seeks to identify, nurture and empower all generations of Latin-American and BIPOC filmmakers with an emphasis on the unification of creative minds and building bridges between the U.S. and Latin America. In other words, and the reason why it is so meaningful to me is I get to create and curate these bridges between films, creatives and filmmakers from both Latin America and the US to give them a space and a platform in Los Angeles to showcase their work. Read more>>

Denise Bunkert

At the heart of my creative journey is a deep commitment to making art accessible and fostering creativity beyond traditional spaces. I truly believe that art has the power to heal, connect, and transform—and some of the most meaningful moments in my career have come from bringing that vision to life. Read more>>

Rebekah Skovron

One of the most meaningful projects I have worked on is my hand-painted card business. It started really organically. For as long as I can remember, I have made cards for friends and family, especially around holidays. There is something about a handwritten, hand-painted card that feels extra special, especially in a time when so much is digital and fast. Cards are such sentimental keepsakes, but they have gotten a bit lost in the shuffle of texting and e-cards. Read more>>

Eric

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve ever been part of is building my syndicated radio platform, RADIO BASSMENT, which started as a single late-night show on one station and has since grown to air across 15 stations nationwide — and counting. What began as a quiet time slot has evolved into a nationally recognized outlet for breaking new music, spotlighting emerging talent, and giving culture a voice in major markets. Watching it grow organically — not through hype, but through consistency, community, and credibility — has been incredibly rewarding. Read more>>

Jes Raymond

“These Mountains Sing” was a choral arrangement and music video of one of my songs with 25 other singer-songwriters from all over Vermont. I had a grant from The Vermont Arts Council and The National Endowment for the Arts. That work expanded my artistic reach. It was a more ambitious undertaking than I had ever done, involving more collaborators and more moving parts than I had managed previously. First, there was the musical arrangement for eight vocal parts plus a band. Then, there were communications and project management. Video conception, direction, and editing. More than any other project I have done, that piece let me imagine making something beyond my current abilities and then let me grow into the artist who could make it happen. Read more>>

Courtney Scheuerman

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my one-woman show, Holding Court. It was born during a time when life came at me like a wrecking ball — and not in the fun, “Miley Cyrus swinging on it” kind of way. More like, “surprise! Here’s a life implosion you didn’t order.” Read more>>

Willow Martinez-Lopez

My latest self-published book: Broken Hearts & Broken Bones: 6th Anniversary Edition, has been a project that has allowed reflection on poems from a very dark time for me. It opened doors I closed years ago, thinking the feelings attached to the poems were better left in the dark; Now as a 24 year old trans-woman, it’s given me an opportunity to get closure on so many wounds left untreated. This book is not only another anniversary edition, but it’s a mature perspective on hardships I endured as a teenager. It was the first book I self-published when I was only 17 and now I get to have it all over again as an adult. Read more>>

Faith-Ann Young

For the past decade, I’ve been creating meditative textile flag sculptures and large-scale installations that serve as soft, tactile sanctuaries for reflection, meditation, and non-violence. Inspired by Japanese Shintoism, magical realism, the vibrant abstractions of Sam Gilliam, and the environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, I seek to create liminal spaces and ethereal moments of connection and community. Read more>>

Daniela

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on was the 1837 Blue® Conservation Campaign by Tiffany & Co., shot at their flagship store in New York and at Times Square. What made it so impactful wasn’t just the prestige of the brand, but the message behind it. The campaign was created as a case study for the Cannes Lions Festival—widely regarded as the most prestigious global stage for excellence in creativity, celebrating sustainability and legacy through a contemporary lens. Being selected as part of the cast—especially as a Latina and Asian actress—felt like a powerful affirmation that there’s space for diverse stories and faces in high fashion and global media. Read more>>

Michèle Haines

Our world turned upside down suddenly when my dad’s doctor called, saying he had a brain bleed during surgery. The following ten months was a roller coaster ride of euphoria when he seemed to be getting better, to devastation when he died. My grandmother who I adored, died shortly afterward. The whole experience taught me that life is too short, so I left for the West Coast to throw myself into my dreams.  Read more>>

Tara Bhrushundi

As small business owners, we are tempted to feel that it’s better for the company if we do it ourselves. This customer or this colleague is more likely to listen if it comes from the owner. The office task will get done quicker and with more detail if the owner does it. But this isn’t true! Delegation is a vital task and it helps to maintain standards of quality. Hire good, smart, positive, hardworking people to each do a specific job, and then trust them to do it. Trying to control everything yourself will lead to slip-ups, since you are leading something bigger than yourself. Read more>>