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.

Perry Easton

I’ve been referencing an ATTIE Project docu-series called The Art of Life—a running joke I share with some friends after attending the Tribeca Film Festival this year. It’s essentially the real-time documentary of my journey as an artist and my experiences with The ATTIE Project. This journey has been a rollercoaster, full of twists and turns, but in all seriousness, ATTIE has been the most exponential project of my career to date. I’m incredibly proud of it because it’s my way of expressing self-love through art. Art’s Timeless Time Is Eternal is a creative venture I founded after leaving the retail industry, where I spent nearly a decade navigating the corporate pipeline. The backstory of this project is a testament to perseverance and marked a significant turning point in my life. I’ve always been passionate about art but could never fully commit due to self-doubt. However, when 2020 hit, I took a leap of faith, leaving my job to pursue art full-time. Read more>>

Michelle Sandlin

By far, my most meaningful project was the writing of my bestselling memoir, “Cancer Don’t Care.” It was published earlier this year, and debuted as a #1 Bestseller and #1 New Release in the Breast Cancer category on Amazon. The book chronicles the raw, emotional, and physical impact of everything I went through following my breast cancer diagnosis in 2021. I wrote it as a way of healing myself, while helping others. But, the overwhelming response and recognition it has received, was beyond my wildest dreams. Read more>>

Anthony Conley

To be honest, all of my projects are meaningful. All of my music speaks on mental health and suicide prevention. My upcoming project, Ponyboy, tells the story of running from your problems and fears, only to realize that in order to heal, you must face it all head on. Ponyboy was written entirely by my bestfriend/producer Tre aka LAV KAI and I. The EP was produced, mixed, and mastered by LAV KAI as well. We wanted to make meaningful music for people to dance to, while still having the darker, goth vibes that HANDSXFEET is known for. I feel we accomplished exactly that! Ponyboy releases on Halloween Night on all platforms. I hope whoever listens to it can connect to the words and be encouraged and inspired. That’s all I can ask for out of this life. Read more>>

Ana Karina Cano

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is the short film Dreamers, directed by Frank Zanella. This project is incredibly special to me because it addresses the struggles and aspirations of immigrants, a topic that resonates deeply in today’s world. Dreamers tells the story of individuals who come to the U.S. in search of a better life, exploring the challenges they face as they navigate their identities, their hopes, and the obstacles in their path. Read more>>

Linney Warren

A few months ago, I was contacted by Croft House, a furniture brand that I have admired for many years, about creating custom pieces to hang in their showroom. The use of materials in subtle unexpected ways, especially wood, is a signature part of the Croft House aesthetic, so I immediately knew that I wanted to work with wood. It was a new medium for me, so I went to my Dad who is a really talented woodworker. He helped me carve a series of intricate shapes out of maple and then I covered them in layers of plaster for a ceramic look and feel. Discovering this new technique meant that there were so many failures along the way. Ultimately, those challenges made the final result that much more meaningful! Getting the chance to work with my Dad on an art piece for one of my favorite brands was a literal dream come true. Read more>>

Sarah Keith

In 2022, I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. My doctor referred to it as a piranha in my body. A tumor as aggressive as it could be. I had been breastfeeding my babies for almost 6 years straight and it truly felt like my entire life exploded in an instant. After a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, one of my friends asked me to take a pottery class with her. At the end of our 6 week course, I held a tiny vase in my hand and pushed two little boobs into the clay. It felt like the most beautiful thing I had ever created and the perfect way to pay tribute to the end of my active cancer treatment, as I had also just finished 6 weeks radiation. Read more>>

Paytra Gessler

I recently just finished and released a project called “World’s About To Get Crazy” — an EP about my personal fears, anxieties, and thoughts around where we are at in a society as it relates to politics, but also socially. My music has always been focused on empowerment… specifically for young women. To have such a positive response (and of course some… not so positive lol) on a project where I speak about real things on my mind is truly so magical. I love writing catchy pop music, but being able to fuse that with something that’s bigger than myself… and seeing the impact it has on people who listen might be the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done. Watching young girls create videos using my song to call for change and speak up is truly so rewarding and I’m honored to be part of this community and movement. Read more>>

Macherí Samuels

My passion project for the last few years has been to get the “The Scholar” television show off the ground. It is an edutainment show I created to give an opportunity to display some of Jamaica’s brightest in a trivia game show, where they can win funds towards furthering their education. From a young age, my parents instilled in us a high regard for education. We didn’t have much but our parents made do with what we did have. My dad was a chemistry high school teacher and my mom was a dental nurse, who later went back to school for her MBA. When it was time for me to go to secondary school, their dedication to ensuring we had a firm foundation led them to uprooting the family and taking jobs at the school for benefits that would allow them to afford the school fees where they believed we would have the best education. I remember before we could fully enjoy summer holidays, we had to read our textbooks for the next year and write book reports; we may not have appreciated it at the time, but it was for our own benefit. Fast forward to the middle and that core belief that morals, values and intelligence would take us through the World has really paid off.  Read more>>

Nevin Allen

As a writer, an important part of my job is creating meaning in creative work while also making it commercially viable, so every project I contribute to has a special place in my heart. The most meaningful to me, though, is my recent poetry book, Ten Thousand Ventures. I started writing it in high school with no real direction in mind and shaped it over the course of about five years. It represents both the longest timeline I’ve worked on and the most drafts I’ve ever written of a single thing. I also self-published the book without prior print experience, making the one project I made almost entirely on my own also one I can physically hand to other people instead of sending them a link. That’s a really good feeling. Read more>>

Carel Brest Van Kempen

I’ve recently taken on two projects that I feel are particularly meaningful. The first one was a commission I won in 2021 from my home state of Utah, which wanted artwork celebrating the 125th anniversary of statehood. I proposed to create a painting illustrating the ecological changes that Utah has seen over the past century and a quarter. I was very gratified that they accepted the proposal, and even more so when I learned they were preparing a space for it, along with the explanatory text I wrote for it, in the new State Museum that’s currently under construction. It’s my hope that this painting and its text will help deepen many people’s awareness of the ecosystem that surrounds and supports all of us. Read more>>

Aldrich Camero

My latest EP- ‘Paranoia, California’ is the most impactful project of my music career so far. I’ve gone through so many changes as an artist these past few years and this body of work is a step in the direction that I want to go. It encompasses all of the emotions from my early 20s and takes me back to my roots. Read more>>

Ting Zhang

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is called OdySea, which is designed to help individuals process grief after losing a loved one through sea burial. The idea came from a personal reflection on how we cope with loss and the often passive nature of the grieving process. I wanted to create something that not only honors the deceased but also empowers the grieving to actively engage with their emotions in a positive way. Read more>>

Haysam Ali

Since I moved to Los Angeles about a year and a half ago, I have had the privilege of studying acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life thus far, especially because I feel I have come to know myself in a more meaningful way, understand what I have gone through, and accept who I am. With that said, I have started to feel comfortable discussing topics that are important not only to me but to society as well, such as bullying. This year, I received the incredible opportunity to be the lead actor in a short film aimed at raising awareness about this issue. The film is currently circulating in festivals, and the feedback from viewers—reflecting on the topic and raising awareness—fills me with profound gratitude. Read more>>

Joella Byron-dixon

One of my projects that is probably most meaningful to me is titled “Deep Water”. The concept for this shoot was living in my head for months, but I kept finding reasons to push it off. One day in August of 2023, I finally told myself, “I NEED to bring this idea to life, in some way”. That same evening, I captured a collection of images I’m thrilled to display in my portfolio. It is a vulnerable representation of navigating daily life with depression; a project that I hoped would shed light on the often misunderstood & stigmatized topic of mental health. I received so much positive feedback from this shoot, where people shared their stories of struggle and resilience. Plus, my sister was my model, so that made it even more special. Read more>>

Michael Tipton

I would say the most meaningful project I’ve worked on so far has been my solo album that was released in 2023 and the subsequent formation of my band, The Scoundrels. Back in 2020, when we were all on lockdown, I had the time to get back in to the music I grew up on, which was largely western swing and traditional country music. I went on a deep dive of several records I had not listened to in decades and from that, a creative spark was ignited. I began learning the guitar parts to some of the songs I had been listening to, learning new chord patterns and a style that I had not previously played. Simultaneously, I was preparing to move out of my rural home and as a part of that, went through boxes upon boxes of newspaper clippings from my youth: I raised cattle and was involved in 4-H from first grade through my senior year in high school and I had a bunch of photos that brought me back to pre-internet life on the farm. I also came across all the old band news articles and photos across the many years I have been playing music.  Read more>>

Bakari Robinson

The Most meaningful project I’ve worked on are. My Franchise Series called: The Dark Entities. May of 2022 was The Dark Entities Volume I. 2023 The Dark Entities Volume II. Standard Edition. 2024 The Dark Entities Volume III. Lead Assassins. . I have produced Three High Technical CGI (Computer Generated Imagery): Under The Dark Entities Franchise. Now that those beautiful projects have been created, I have now completed my 4th Illustration Installment The Dark Entities Volume IV. Dimensions To Hell, which will be releasing May 9, 2025. The circumstances that have went into these projects were. Time management, Technology Budgeting, and most of all producing high level game design illustrated characters to make them come to life, in CGI. Each time I have finished a masterpiece, I always like to scale it to the next level. To see if what other changes I can do in my next masterpiece, to make my projects better each time. So basically what I am saying is, the more I produce big budget projects. The more I will continue to get better in my Game Design Career. Read more>>

David Najera Gonzalez

The most meaningful project I have worked on so far was my debut EP as a bandleader, “Patos”. I had to learn to believe in myself in order to see it through. It took two years of work to have it recorded and a year and a half of post-production. There are many memories I cherish: the introspective exploration to write the music, collaborating with dear friends and learning to overcome inevitable difficulties that come with leading a large band.  I began writing the songs in Mexico City, during the Covid-19 lockdown in March of 2020. I was privileged to have more time to myself during the pandemic than before. I realized that I had been very busy working on perfecting drumming and had neglected writing music for some years. I would spend whole afternoons playing guitar trying to figure out melody and harmony. Playing with my brother, we came up with the planting seed for “Give It a Chance”, the second song on the EP. It was later featured as “Song of The Day” in All About Jazz. Looking back on that time, I realize I was happy to be there with my family and I am thankful for my brother’s role in my musical development.  Read more>>

Vir Srinivas

My latest film, ‘Gradient Descent’, was inspired by a TIME investigation into OpenAI’s systematic exploitation of Kenyan workers. The exposé detailed how the company’s outsourcing partner in Kenya paid its employees less than $2 an hour to consume and label explicit image, video, audio, and text content including child sexual abuse, murder, suicide, torture, and self-harm. This was done in order to classify and filter out the toxic content from the training datasets of ChatGPT. It tragically led to significant rates of mental health issues amongst the employees. My film takes the concept of OpenAI exploiting employees in the third world and brings it to an American context. The story follows a homeless American man who is recruited by a fictional, nefarious artificial intelligence corporation, to do this work. It takes a traumatic toll on his mental health and the film follows his journey attempting to expose the company’s practices. Many focus on the threats generative AI poses to our future. Few, even now, are aware of its exploitative past. Unfortunately today, this story is not exactly science-fiction, but an all-too-credible thriller. In the name of technological progress, the human factor is often forgotten. Read more>>

Antonio Liranzo

The most meaningful project I worked on is my EP “Lover Boy”, that just debuted on 10/18/24. While creating this project, I was trying to analyze why I had toxic dating habits; why was I so codependent?, why did I fall in love so quickly?, why am I trying to be someone I am not?! This EP celebrates that experience. I take you on a journey from my personal experiences, from feeling sexy with your girls and gays, to falling in love, to falling out of love, to having sex in a different country haha, its all part of the human experience! I also wanted to pave my own way for an artist like me. Yes, I am a gay pop artist, but also I am Antonio Liranzo. No one sounds like me or has my experience, it’s about time the world catches up! I am representing the underdogs in my community and the people that are vulnerable lovers, who are sometimes scared of being so vulnerable. There is strength in our love and eagerness, it’s about damn time we are seen. We aren’t weak, we are brave because we love and we are passionate. Read more>>

Isis Ashanti

I believe for me one of the most meaningful project I’ve worked on was the project I did to announce the release of my website. I have many projects that are meaningful to me because I feel like every idea that I have is connected to my life in some way, whether it’s something I’m learning in the moment, from my past, or looking towards the future. The project I want to speak about is the one I call “Yin and Yang.” The theme of the shoot was generally speaking on the comparison of opposite things and how many times you find parts of one in the other, like Yin and Yang. Sometimes I feel like there is a battle between the two things when all there needs to be is acceptance of each other, and so, the battle for me represented how I felt at the time about growing up and having to balance between my inner child and growing young adult. How sometimes there’s an inner conflict or imbalance and the process of getting to equilibrium feels like having to find one inside of the other and accepting yourself as a whole. Read more>>

Elijah “e-kaine” Eubanks

Currently I’m working on my first album! The whole theme of the album is mental health issues and the darkness of life. I came up with this concept because I struggle with a lot of different aspects of mental health, I suffer from depression, anxiety, and I was diagnosed with bipolar depression. Alongside that I also suffered from addiction. For about eight years, I was addicted to heroin. In 2022 I found out I was going to be a father and made the decision right then and there that I was going to be sober. Getting sober was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I went through a lot of downs and I’ve hit a lot of low points in my life but, that first year after I quit doing drugs, I hit the lowest point I’ve been in. After a long while, I learned how to cope with life. My therapist that I was seeing helped me through a lot of that and taught me a lot. Read more>>

Dary Dega

The art has always been a part of my everyday life. I grew up in Russia, where even in the smallest town, you could always find many exciting museums and cultural sites. I traveled a lot with my family, and visiting museums and galleries was the main entertainment. It was a part of my life and a source of tremendous inner energy for me. Many of my favorite museums, such as the Rodin Museum in Paris or the Catherine Palace in Peterhof, became a place of solitude for me, a place to read books, and a place of the best memories. Art has always been a part of me. Everything changed after I emigrated to the USA. A small town in Texas plunged me into a prolonged culture shock. At that moment, I realized how much I need art and feel empty without it. Read more>>

Wenyao Mi

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on has been Govball 2023, where I served as the lead designer responsible for developing its visual identity. The vision behind the project was to pay homage to New York City, a place deeply intertwined with the festival’s soul. I created a fluid gradient as the centerpiece of the design, drawing inspiration from the vibrant spray paint graffiti that colors the streets of the city. The gradient not only captured the beauty of summer but also encapsulated the energetic, eclectic spirit of the festival itself. Read more>>

Wav Lee

This November I’m dropping an album that I’ve been working on for the last 2 years. The album is called “If you know, you know” and will feature multiple artists from ogden and salt lake as well as artists from all over the country. This album is an accumulation of the relationships and experiences that made me the producer I am today and I’m honored to showcase the talented artists that have trusted me and collaborated with me in the last few years. This project is so meaningful to me because I wouldn’t be the producer that I am without the incredible artists that are represented on the album. Because of their collaboration, feedback and trust, we’ve been able to curate a musical experience that I’m very proud of and I hope the world will enjoy it as much as I do.  Read more>>

Nairuolan Su

The Most Meaningful Project: Anonymity Makeup Collection One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is the Anonymity Makeup Collection, a concept designed for Maison Margiela. This project was a transformative experience for me as it illuminated the power of branding design. It demonstrated how thoughtful, strategic branding can take a brand beyond its traditional boundaries, evolving it from a product-centric identity into an iconic lifestyle. It showed me how design can open doors to new markets, create something bigger, and make a lasting impact across different industries. Read more>>

Hunter La Salle

The most meaningful projects we’ve worked on have been our films: Shiprock, 1952, STORMCHASERS, and our upcoming film, NIGHTHAWK. As well as our first album releasing in January 2025, 21st Century Heroes. These projects are meaningful to us because, as brothers, we have always created art together, striving to become great, and these are our most recent projects that most closely represent our vision and where we are headed in the future. We dedicated Shiprock, 1952 to our grandfather, Jeane La Salle, and we feel that this story allows him to live forever through the magic of cinema. Read more>>

Donna Green

The most meaningful experiences I have at my job are two-fold. I work and volunteer for a handful of organizations that provide photographs and experiences for special needs and/or kids with cancer. I volunteered for years with Flashes of Hope, I would take my team into the hospital and we provided photos for inpatient kids with cancer. It was more about connecting with the kids than it was the photographs, but oftentimes we’d see the parents out in public and they’d hug us and cry telling us the photos we did were the last photos they had of their children, it was a very rewarding experience. I also work for the Tim Tebow Foundation participating in the Night to Shine annual prom for the special needs population. It’s such a great night of connecting with all the prom guests year after year and now my two sons volunteer with me and have for about 4 or 5 years. These events are so meaningful to what I do and how I feel I impact other people’s lives by offering my craft, not just the photos, but the whole experience of being present and holding space for people. Read more>>

Aaron Hammersley

In July of 2024, I co-authored the first comprehensive guide to improve and elevate Bi+ representation in film and television characters. As a child, I was obsessed with movies and tv shows. This artform’s extraordinary ability to provide inspiration and offer a safe place, to be an escape and also open an empathetic eye to other people’s experiences, etc. was so important to surviving and growing into the person I am today. It is why I have made working in the industry my career for the last 16 years. What it has never done is permit me to see myself on screen…  I’ve searched my entire life to see myself in a film or TV character. Now well into adulthood and an out and proud advocate for the bisexual community what I’ve discovered, is that sadly this is true for so many bi+ people like me. Read more>>