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.

Polly Lau

The feature film “Angels Near Death” has been one of the most meaningful projects that I’ve worked on so far.

Producing a feature for the first time while not having very enriched experiences is not easy and the pre-production process of a feature film is way different than another short film that I’ve produced before.I see Angels Near Death as an opportunity to push me further toward my dream of becoming a producer. Most of the time, I’m learning new knowledge during this pre-production stage. It has given me a deeper understanding not just of producing itself, but also of the art of storytelling. Read more>>

Roderick Johnson

My first Role as a co lead I played a veteran dealing with PTSD. This role may have been the hardest and most fulfilling role I have done, simply because I am a veteran who deals with PTSD. The fulfilling part is that I believe this film will bring more awareness to to the issue of veterans dealing with this trying to readjust to society. Read more>>

Jeff Pliskin

One of the most meaningful projects I have worked on was documenting the help and assistance to those who were affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 on our local beaches, Long Beach, and Rockaway Beach, NY.

Superstorm Sandy had wiped out power and destroyed housing for many families in the area. We contacted musicians who had helped us give funds and generators to those who needed it for survival. Read more>>

Isa Marina

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on, to date, is my upcoming music for 2025. It’s significant because it represents my growth not just as an artist, but as a person. This project has been years in the making and the journey to this point hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to take time away from releasing music to focus on other aspects of my life and career, and that pause taught me a lot about patience and perseverance. Now, I’m reintroducing myself to my audience with music that feels more personal and honest than ever. Read more>>

John Kaner

Recently, I was fortunate enough to have an amazing opportunity to produce Culture Club featuring Sia, in collaboration with Roy Hay. Not only have I worked on approx. 20 projects for film and TV including most recently Confidential Informant starring Mel Gibson, I am also excited to collaborate with some exciting new singer/songwriters, for example, Beth Brandy from England, and Elizabeth Woolf from California. Read more>>

Maribeth Klaar

Metanoia Tattoo Gathering is the most meaningful project I have worked on because of my own personal experiences regarding the balance of life, motherhood and the tattoo artistry. The tattoo industry is extremely chaotic. There is so much artist to artist comparison, so much hurry to get to the next step or next place in our career, and so much pressure to be more than you need to be. At Metanoia Tattoo Gathering, we think differently about how artists should approach their careers in tattooing. Because of my own personal experience as a mother and tattooer, I felt the call and drive to create a space specifically for other women and mothers in the tattoo industry. Read more>>

Joel Leischner

I would say the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on are my first two LPs. I just spent a lot of time on those tracks and wrote those throughout different times in my life so all those tracks have different meanings and represent a different time in my life. Eventually it all came together and i was set up to record. When it came down to it I had enough songs for a couple albums so I laid them down and out of it came my two LPs “Ristretto” & “Everything in the Dark, Exists in the Light” and also my “Stretto EP” Read more>>

Camp Bedford

Our most meaningful project to date is our most recent EP ‘Do you regret it?.” As queer artists navigating the industry and world it feels special and important to be able to contribute more femme queer narratives to the indie music scene. Read more>>

Yangqi Deng

Last year, I initiated a project called DM444 during my MFA program. With the support of my cohort and faculty, we transformed our department’s traditional Thursday gatherings into dynamic skill-sharing events.

Building on our department’s movie and game nights, we envisioned weekly gatherings that would both entertain and showcase our diverse talents. We created an open platform where anyone could propose and host activities—from VR exhibitions and coffee readings to finger knitting and cookie-making. This flexible format encouraged experimentation fostered connections, and sparked collaborations. It gave us a platform to explore interests beyond our primary studies. Read more>>

Amber Gonzales Duong

A local baker introduced me to icingsmiles.org. Icing Smiles is a nonprofit organization that provides custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by the critical illness of a child. I am an ovarian cancer survivor myself, and since then I still struggle with my health. I have been chosen as a baker for some children going through more than any person, let alone a child, should ever go through. Seeing their smiles when they’ve picked up their cakes has been incredibly rewarding. Not only that, I am able to keep up with them on social media and see how they are doing. I feel truly blessed to be able to provide a dream cake for these amazing kids. I bake to make others happy, and this always reminds me of that. Read more>>

Julia Whitley

Giving Life Garden, now also a living breathing space called Alive is our most profound and meaningful project. One of my deepest connections to this gorgeous planet in through nature and the gratitude that I have everything that breathes life. My motto was “be kind to everything that breathes life.” It felt rather hippish in the circles I was in, so I kept that in my heart and shared it with just a handful of people. Some have not only been a part of our project but have contributed to it. Read more>>

Cat Evers

At this stage in my artistry, I would say that the most meaningful song I’ve worked on is ‘Worthy’. It’s one of four songs from my first EP.

The song is a dedication to my mother, who struggled with substance abuse for a few years when I was younger. It is common for there to be a lot of shame and remorse for those who have struggled with addiction, both for the individual and for their loved ones. I wanted to find a way to rewrite this narrative. I wanted to write something that, while still telling our story, also focuses on forgiveness and love. Read more>>

Hannah Claire

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is a portrait series I started at the tail end of 2019. I had been watching the women in the world raise their voices conveying to the world that we all should listen with the #metoo movement and the protests for womens rights. Being the ever outspoken woman that I am I wanted to help in a different way and help show the younger generation of woman the strength, courage, and power we all truly possess. With that in mind I decided to start a watercolor portrait series of women around the world who have changed or influenced history in one way or another. Read more>>

Serena Ray

It all starts in the sketchbook. In my case, a worn-down broken one covered in stickers I cultivated from my study abroad. The senseless scribbles, the jotting down of notes in the middle of math class, the lined paper cut-outs of ideas taken from an outsider’s view of a protest; everything in that messy spiral held one common characteristic: experiment. Ever since I was in elementary school, testing creative forms has been my wheelhouse. From arts and crafts to recreating my favorite Disney show characters on paper, artistic expression came in various forms; no limits were imposed. Yet, the most transformative moment occurred when I combined social justice with visual art – a true experiment that grew into the practice of creating impact beyond colors composed on a page. Read more>>

Kari Angelica Peña

Something I recently got to do was create a sort of “mini” free film festival of my own. I called it “An Evening of Shorts.” The idea began from me wanting to screen my own short film, “Like a Promethean Curse”. If you’ve seen the film, you know the runtime is quite short. Six minutes short. I would’ve felt crazy to rent out an entire venue for one six minute thing. So that’s when I decided that it would be fun to curate some local (and international) independent short films to join my own film. Read more>>

Silverpath

Our album is by far the most meaningful project we have ever worked on as a band. It is the culmination of the life journeys of the four of us separately and together up until this point in time.
The circumstances and life choices that all had to fall into place in order to for us all to cross each others paths and decide to play together in this band is simply mind blowing when you think about it. Read more>>

Leigha Perez

Every time I work an event illustrating custom portraits, live and for the guests to take home, it is a meaningful experience. Particularly illustrating at weddings because, to me, our wedding day is one of the most important days of our lives, so being able to capture that moment in time for guests to commemorate the day for years to come, it is incredibly special and makes me feel like this is the best job on the planet. Read more>>

Isaiah Moore

In spring of 2023 I began writing “til death do we art”. A short film about Kori, whom burdened by their immortality, has lost the urgency to create art or engage in any meaningful endeavors, believing that they have an eternity to do so. Snoh, Kori’s lifelong best friend on the other hand, lives life to the fullest, embracing each day as a precious gift. Their friendship is an intricate dance between the eternal and the ephemeral. Although laced with an undertone of queerness and a gender non conforming character, the main themes I set out to represent is platonic intimacy and shared grief. Read more>>

Zykira Wilson

The most meaningful project I have worked on was a painting I titled, “Growing Pains.” I created it back in November of 2022 after experiencing a traumatic experience and transitioning to a different location that I grew up in that I thought I would never return to. I suffered deep pain from what I had experienced in the months before, I couldn’t sleep for days, couldn’t watch certain shows or bare to hear any loud yelling/noises or even look at myself in the mirror and recognize myself, it scarred me to look at that reflection of pain in my own eyes. I had always been pretty reserved and to myself, keeping all of my work only sacred to me, not wanting to share it with the world out of fear they’d only see the pain. Read more>>

Alexander Wells

Honestly? My most meaningful project that I’ve worked on is my most recent one; Sound of Silence, a short black and white film about misophonia and mental health, filmed in the style of a poetic documentary.

It may be a short video that was filmed and produced for a school project, but it is without a doubt the most important project I’ve worked on. It’s an emotionally raw depiction a day in the life of someone living with sensory issues (me, in this case). It’s a little piece of my own mental health story, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. My hope is that people find it informative and thought-provoking, and maybe even a little entertaining – I put a lot of effort in to make it as cinematic as possible. Read more>>

Shemika Renée

I would say my most meaningful project would be my one-woman show “Ms. Story’s Living History”. I’ve always loved historic costumes and learning about people from the past. In elementary school I would dress as whoever I did an oral report on for class. When my children started school, I volunteered to dress as historical figures and tell their story in first person. My friends saw what I was doing from my posts on social media and said they wished they could see my work and I joked that one day I would write a show or perform for them. One friend challenged me to actually do it and in 2019 I wrote the show and “Ms. Story” was born. Read more>>

Nathaniel Freson

The most meaningful project I’ve had the privilege of creating is Bili the Brave, a children’s book I illustrated in partnership with the American Liver Foundation. Bili the Brave really stands out to me because it wasn’t just about illustrating a story, it was about creating something that could genuinely make a difference and bring hope into the lives of children and families navigating the challenges of Biliary Atresia. Read more>>

Scarlet Rivera

My Climate Music project Voice of the Animals is a collaboration of top climate scientists, visual artist and my original music resulting in an 18 minute video to highlight the climate and biodiversity crisis in the Amazon and Congo as an example of what is happening around the globe. It was premiered Sep 27 culminating Climate Week at the historic Explorers Club in NYC with live performance to the video and a panel discussion with myself, a top climate scientist and head of the Zebra Trust from Masai Mara Africa. Read more>>

Jande Laulu

One of my most special projects is my birth flower prints. These unique pieces celebrate families by showcasing each member’s birth month flower, creating a personalized design that includes everyone. Many customers have used these prints as memorials or birth announcements, and I’ve been overwhelmed by the incredible feedback. So many five-star reviews and heartfelt stories about how much these pieces mean to people. Read more>>

Jessica Mannisi

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve had the honor to work on in recent years was Missouri Ink, an exhibition focused on the art of Missouri tattoo artists.

My passion and primary mission as the director of exhibitions at the Foundry Art Centre is to highlight the incredible talent of our region’s artists. I love building relationships with artists of all media, learning more about their practice, their backgrounds, and what keeps them engaged as artists. Read more>>

Vegas Mace

I first watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show about three and a half years ago during a sleepover with a college friend. At the time, I identified as cisgender and was in a heterosexual relationship with my high school sweetheart. Yet, deep down, I’d always felt that something about me was different—I just didn’t have the language or experiences to fully understand it. When I watched the movie, it was like a lightbulb went off. For the first time, I realized that gender and sexuality weren’t black-and-white concepts. Read more>>

Rachel Warmath

1) My first memoir. In June 2024 at the age of 36, I independently published a memoir called Alive in the Fire: The Journey to Inner Peace and Creative Power. The book is a genre-defying memoir that tells my story but also breaks the “fourth wall” and turns to you, the reader, to invite you to reflect on your own life. In this book, I explore the powerful connection between physical strength and creative confidence, sharing the lessons I’ve learned in embracing my body and letting go of perfectionism and hustle culture. Read more>>

Elaina Mcbride

I have been a piano teacher professionally for about three years now. In this time, I have had the privilege of teaching students of all ages, all backgrounds, and all levels of experience. For me, it is tricky to pinpoint one specific project or event that is most meaningful to me, because I feel I am gifted with many opportunities that remind me of why I love what I do as a piano instructor. Read more>>

Rory Mcharg

The most meaningful projects you work on are often the one’s that adversely affect you, or leave an experiential foot print on your lives and the lives of those who are involved in the project. These projects just spur you to do more in a similar vein.

The most meaningful in recent history was my film “A Two Hearted Tale” a documentary exploring the art of an infamous beer label by an eccentric Kalamazoo artist in the twilight of his career, the challenge was to use a seemingly mundane subject like a beer label; something with a mild cult following, as an entry point that would open a window revealing a complex human experience. Read more>>

Liv Dawson

I think the most meaningful project I’ve worked on thus far has been a short film I completed during my MFA at Pratt Institute. As a child, my father discouraged us from viewing our family archive in order to preserve our memories of actual events like birthdays, holidays, and family time. We had a few photos around the home, and of course when I was thirteen I got social media and began creating my own archive, but from infancy to pre-teenage years I didn’t really look at images of myself. My father had this theory from his own experience that he would see an image from his childhood, and then every time after that he would remember himself in the image, and less from the first-person perspective of the actual memory. Read more>>