Every once in a while we have the good fortune of working on a project that we feel truly matters, a project that we’ll still be thinking about years from now. Maybe even something we can imagine telling our grandkids about – surely you’ve had moments like that where something you did in your professional life really mattered?

Jennifer Benson

Ignescent opened for Flyleaf and that’s when I met Sameer Bhattacharya. I am huge fan of Flyleaf. We ended up co-writing a song together about overcoming battles in our lives. It was an honor co-writing a song with someone I have looked up to. This song will be releasing on our next album. Read more>>

Eye Sticker

one of my most meaningful projects that I’ve worked on recently was my “free Luigi” street art campaign.
Luigi Mangione, as we know is being charged of a murder of the CEO of United Health Care insurance company.
I created an artwork of an orange pill container, and Luigi is inside of it with orange prisoner uniform. Read more>>

Alex Chester-Iwata

Three years ago, Mixed Asian Media (my organization) hosted the first-ever Mixed Asian Day, celebrating what it means to be of mixed Asian Pacific Heritage.

I started this day because it was a day to celebrate being mixed Asian. We are often overlooked during Asian Pacific American Native Hawaiian Heritage Month (APANH). I have frequently heard from our community that folks do not feel they would be welcome at events and celebrations. So we started our own day. Read more>>

Ariadne Antipa

In 2019 I had been living in Cincinnati, OH for one year, working on a doctorate in Piano Performance with a minor in Choral Conducting. One of the things I appreciated most about the music school I was attending was that they allowed students the option of completing a Doctoral Project as an alternative to a traditional dissertation. I’m first and foremost a classical pianist with extensive private teaching experience. But I’m also heavily involved with choirs and am deeply passionate about working with people, especially those who have been marginalized or “othered” by society. Combining my different skills and passions, I launched and directed a choir for adults in addiction recovery. Read more>>

Priya Shroff

One of the most meaningful projects I have worked on sits at the intersection of two very different worlds: service design and quantum physics. On the surface, these disciplines seem unrelated. One is highly technical and mathematical, while the other is deeply human-centered. However, the challenge of bridging them turned out to be incredibly rewarding and personal. Read more>>

Angelica Alexander

The most meaningful project for me is my dance production In Her Feelings: a Danceography. We are meant to feel and have a wide range of emotions. The hardest part for me in going through what I went through in life, is being okay with the fact that I’m not supposed to act or feel one kind of way. I strived for perfection, not wanting to crack, because if I cracked, I wouldn’t be “Angel” .Women are a puzzle and should never feel guilty for being so. This production is not designed to solve or answer the many questions of emotional intelligence. Read more>>

Martin Barrick

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is without a doubt my biggest release to date: “Fast Cars & Superstars.” It’s an EDM track I was featured on vocally, alongside the incredibly talented and well-known Italian DJ and producer Cristian Marchi. Read more>>

Steve Maggiora

Right now, my most meaningful project is the release of my new album, Unburdened, dropping April 15th on all streaming platforms—and also available as a physical CD on my website. This record is deeply personal and has been a long time coming. After years of releasing singles while juggling life on the road, it feels incredibly satisfying to finally put out a cohesive body of work—one that tells a complete story. Read more>>

Aja Holloway

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is a sculpture titled “This Comfort”. I created it during a period of profound introspection, when my anxiety was at its peak. It was a time of emotional desolation, where I found myself grappling with uncomfortable, yet essential questions: Why do I hold onto this heaviness, even when I know it’s not helping me? How do we find solace in the things that hold us back? And what does it say about us when we find comfort in the discomfort? These questions, which arose from the depths of vulnerability, became the foundation for the piece—a quiet exploration of the paradox of finding something almost nurturing in something that should be unsettling. Read more>>

Danny Setiawan

The series called “my body my story” . It’s series of body painting images painted to visualize the models internal reality which help them embrace their own body and allow them to reevaluate their relationship with their own body. This provides an opportunity for them to redefine their identity and the story that they tell the world about themselves and about their own body.  Read more>>

Ahmed Childs

Just before the pandemic I was invited to be on a team of artists painting murals in Wilmington, Delaware. Originally we were going to paint in Baltimore but the pandemic interrupted our progress. With a lot of patience we were commissioned to paint two murals in Wilmington, DE. We painted “The World Needs You” on the side of a house and we did a dedicated mural to Kobe Bryant at a community center. Read more>>

Javier Grillo-Marxuach

In 2016, I was hired to co-executive produce “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.” Henson’s original film was a tremendous influence for me, and one of my memories was reading an article about the making of the film in a magazine and seeing a picture of Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Gary Kurtz (who also produced “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strike Back”). At the age of twelve, I looked at that picture in awe; and at those men as wizards. Read more>>

Carly

‘JANE EYRE WASN’T A WHORE’ is the mot meaningful project I’ve ever worked on. Much like me, it is a work in progress.

I have read every Brontë novel, and I firmly believe that there is no one who understands modern dating more than Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. My friends make fun of me because every time they find themselves in a messy situationship, I find a passage from a Brontë novel, text it to them, and say “See! This is just like you! You’re not alone! This woman who died 150 years ago totally gets it.” Read more>>

Mike Thompson

To date, the most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my debut Big Band album, 6th Avenue. I’ve been writing Big Band music on commission for years, and it was time to put together a representation of my own voice to share with the world. This recording kicks off the founding of the Mike Thompson Big Band, a collaboration with 17 fantastic musicians that I hope to continue for a long time. Read more>>

Selena Bender

Every year I offer free lettering for my followers on Instagram and Facebook of their upcoming Word of the Year.. It has become a passion project of mine, it is one of my favorite things to work on. My followers have the option of adding on watercolor prints, t-shirt designs and/or stickers. I then create a fun little happy mail package with a special hand lettered quote that goes with their word of the year. My followers love it, and I love doing it for them. Read more>>

Xinyue Tao

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is a temporary sculptural piece titled Connection. It marked a pivotal shift in my creative process after moving to the UK to study—from thinking first and then making, to making first and then reflecting. This change allowed me to engage more intuitively with materials and ideas, and it opened up new ways of connecting with others through my work. Read more>>

Ger/Ntxawg Xiong/Xyooj

One of the most meaningful projects that I’ve worked on was my Fulbright Fellowship to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I have always been interested in researching Hmong craft and the history of our materials, patterns, and processes of our craft, specifically jewelry and textiles. My project involved researching, documenting, and collaborating with Hmong artisans within the Northern Thailand region. My main focus and region was around the Chiang Mai area and northern Hmong villages of Chiang Mai. Throughout this project, I was able to collaborate and work with two Hmong silversmiths where they taught me where their patterns came from, the process of creating a jewelry piece from scratch (silver grains to something wearable), learned their history and personal stories, and documented their process of creating. Read more>>

Rachel Whinnery

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on via Everyday Akron was a series in 2024 that featured four local businesses through videos, blog posts, and social media content. This wasn’t just about showcasing cute shops or sharing photos of lattes. I wanted to go deeper in order to highlight the people behind these businesses and what it truly means to support them. The goal was to peel back the curtain and show the creativity, grit, and heart that fuels each business. It was a chance to give these entrepreneurs a voice and platform that celebrated their stories, not just their products. Read more>>

Lancelot Schaubert

Rather than talk about the most meaningful project in my life I want to take a minute to talk about the most meaningful project in your life — you, the reader.

Here’s the thing. Almost everyone in this country values money as the ultimate good. And it’s not. It’s a proximate good. Someone with all the money in the world doesn’t have all the power: certainly the gangs of Haiti and the former monarchs of Haiti have proven that true. It’s also true the other way: someone with tons of power or honor could go absolutely broke. And other proximate goods exist: as we’ve seen, Harvey Weinstein ruined the moral beauty of whatever art he could have created on the altar of base, temporary “pleasure.” Read more>>

Seangarrison

I believe all artists have an obligation to utilize their talent to speak to something that impacts society or something that moves the needle of humanity, in the right direction. Creating beauty for beauty’s sake is wonderful and needed, but I feel that we as artist must also use our artistic platform to speak about issues that need to be addressed. The important issues that need illumination. There are millions who do not have a platform or can articulate what they want to say. They need us to be the source of their voice. Read more>>

Jasmine Brimsmayd

My most meaningful project lately is the one that I’m currently working on; Guild In Real Life. It was a project I started as my personal family dynamics began to shift in the wake of my transition and coming out. The story celebrates Transness and Trans folks and our found families in the film, while simultaneously has been a beautiful way for me to connect with folks as it’s been developed and begins its shift from development to pre-production. I hope that that continues as the journey of the project continues too. Read more>>

Ramin Akhavijou

While I do not tend to label any one project as the most meaningful, since everything an artist creates carries purpose and significance, my recent project titled EGO feels especially relevant to the current moment. Its meaning lies not just in its artistic content but in the conversation it opens around emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence. Read more>>

Zack King

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is a song I wrote called “Over & Over.” It’s centered around mental health and suicide prevention, topics that are incredibly personal to me. I’ve struggled with my own mental health for years and have experienced suicidal ideations in the past. Writing this song was a form of therapy for me, but it was also a way to speak directly to anyone who might be going through similar pain. Read more>>

Grable Howie

The most meaningful song I’ve ever created is called “These Woods.” It reminisces about the time my grandfather and I spent together when I was a kid. Our family owns a cabin in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, and during my childhood, my grandpa nurtured my love for nature. Unfortunately, he passed away from Alzheimer’s a few years ago, and I wanted to write a song to honor the impact he had on my life. Read more>>

Cameron Marshall

The most meaningful project I worked on is my latest feature film title “Blackwoods”. What made this movie meaningful was that it was a film I wrote to honor my Dad, Bradford Marshall who passed away from a heart attack in march of 2022. My dad and I were very close and this was the first parent I lost. Losing him left me with a lot of grief I didn’t know how to process at the time and I was struggling to pull myself away from my work. I had just finished my first feature film “Freaky Profiling” so I was in full marketing mode getting that project ready to release on streaming services. My older brother reached out to me that fall and invited me on a black male wellness retreat in Asheville NC. Read more>>

Ashaki

I recently created a relationship card deck. Entitled “Dream Soul” it is something I have been thinking about for years. I have been working on it for the past 2 years and it’s finally done. This deck is a piece of my heart. I created it with one wish in mind: that we all find our person. Whether that’s a soulmate, a friend, or a deeper connection with ourselves—what we all crave, at our core, is to be seen, understood, and loved for who we truly are. Read more>>

Maxxx Massacre

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on actually just happened this past weekend! On February 28th at Harold’s Haunt, Pittsburgh’s first they-bar, I produced a show called “I Think You Should Tease” with my art collective, The Coven of Misfits. It was a draglesque comedy show based on the sketches from the sketch comedy show “I Think You Should Leave”. It was the best night of my life. Getting to share something that I love so much with an audience full of people who love it just as much as I do meant so much. Every person in that bar knew every line, every bit. The energy was magnetic. I feel so grateful that we found an audience for these niche shows we want to produce. Read more>>

Hollie Davis

I founded a residency program in 2022. The Connect Residency is an international program for artists. We meet for four-five weeks virtually. The first hour I teach skills artists need to know, Examples include proposal writing, speaking about your work, and finding calls for art. The second hour industry professionals speak. Previous industry professionals include the largest collector of art in West Africa, journalists, creative consultants, professors, full time artists, and curators. Then I partner with galleries and everyone who participates has a show. I also have a team of fellows who work with me to run the program. Because of this project I’ve worked at the Art Institute of Chicago. I also have worked as a gallery coordinator and been painting my own projects as well. Read more>>

Mana Noda

I would say Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties was the most meaningful project to me. For those of you who don’t know this play, it’s written by Jen Silverman, and it’s about these 5 people all name Betty: Betty 1, Betty 2, Betty 3, Betty 4, and Betty 5. As you can probably guess from the title, it is about anger, but through the lens of women and queer people. I always find myself struggling to be angry, and sadness has always been my first reaction to distress or even when being mistreated. This play explores stages of anger that I really resonated with. It’s not instant but very gradual, and I felt really empowered playing my character, Betty 2’s journey of self discovery by learning to be angry truthfully and making some great friends along the way. Read more>>

Sarina Freda

I wish I could say creating and producing no no no please no god no, nevermind i’m fine was like giving birth, raising a child, and letting that child become their own person. I am not a parent so this doesn’t seem fair to claim, but I am not sure how else to describe it. Read more>>

Abram Santa Cruz

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is the Electric Dandelions, which I first created in 2016. At the time, I had no idea how profoundly this project would shape the trajectory of my public art career. What started as a personal creative experiment evolved into a piece that brought international recognition to my company, Liquid PXL, and opened up a world of opportunities I hadn’t previously imagined. Read more>>

Parisse Dawkins

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on was pitching and producing the Heart of the City Music Festival — an event created to spotlight Black and Brown talent — to the City of Rahway.

Growing up in a vibrant and diverse town that prided itself on the arts, I noticed a disconnect: city-sponsored events rarely reflected the community’s full cultural spectrum, especially its younger voices. There were few opportunities for people like me to shape the events we wanted to attend. Read more>>

Ebony Noelle Golden

I’m currently engaged in some of the most meaningful work I’ve ever undertaken. It began several years ago when I was working on what was then the largest art and culture project of my career, 125th & FREEdom. At the project’s end, I was left with many questions, which for me is a positive sign. Lingering questions indicate that a story or process has more life and potential opportunities to explore. Read more>>

HT

I think my current project “Disciples of a Craftsman” is the most meaningful project I’ve worked on to date. It touches on themes like community, hope, and empowerment that are both personally and socially relevant. It’s the story of a man who’s lost hope, not in the community, but in the idea that anyone can change things for the better. He goes through a trialling few days in the wake of his father’s death that force him to accept that the only way anything will improve is if we each play our part in making a change. Read more>>

Megan Gael McCarthy

Last year I applied to an open call for the Locals Only gallery in the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colorado. At the time I had been creating work that was significantly different from anything I had done before. Not only did the finished pieces differ, but the process itself was a new exploration for me. Read more>>