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?

Eduardo Baldo

Every project that I got involved with was meaningful. I always give my best to each and every opportunity given to me. But some projects end up standing out more than others, and I believe my current band is one of those. Read more>>

Joan Marie Galat

Writing the book—Make Your Mark, Make a Difference: A Kid’s Guide to Standing Up for People, Animals, and the Planet (Aladdin/Beyond Words)—was a particularly meaningful project. This comprehensive guide for middle readers encourages kids and teens to make the changes they want to see in our world. It delivers essential human rights background, strategies for change, and the perspective that every contribution matters. Read more>>

Amy Lyndon

My book, “The Lyndon Technique: 15 Guideline Map to Booking Technique,” has been called a ‘secret weapon’ for actors. The Technique has been instrumental in turning out 56+ Series Regulars, an Emmy Award Winner and 1000’s of working actors around the world. Read more>>

Kyle Chatham & The Road Shots

We are currently working out all of the details for our 1st full length album entitled “Trying 2 Feel Alive”. This will be a follow up to our 1st ever live EP “Trying To Feel Alive” released on New Year’s Eve 2022. This album will also be recorded live, but this time from Fraco’s Bar & Music in Littleton, Colorado on 12/20/23. Our friend Tree from Open Stage Denver will be helping us out with the recording process. Read more>>

Sharron Tendai

In late 2022 a good friend of my husband and I, Sam who knew about our community involvement reached out to me via Facebook about some grant funding for DC residents for community projects aimed at reducing gun violence in the city. At the time I was actively volunteering with my daughter’s dance school and other programs in the city focused on women and girls and I began very interested in the Black-wealth gap and been reading anything I could get my hands on related to the topic. Read more>>

Judi Blondin

In my line of work I feel like most if not all of the pieces I create are meaningful. A story created from an experience I had, a landscape I stood in awe by or a custom piece that is meaningful for the person who asked me to craft it. A few do stick out in my head. A couple necklaces using the hair of beloved horses, earrings that remind a mother of time spent together when her kids were younger… Or rings used to declare a love to another. Read more>>

Aparna Halpé

When projects have meaning, they not only transform your own practice, but they touch the lives of others in ways that matter. I founded Solidaridad Tango to be in solidarity with the things that matter right now. In a world that’s falling apart, where collapsing economies of greed dictate that artists don’t matter, it’s important to give voice to truth. Read more>>

Chris Bixi Li

I’d say it should be my first feature film, Hide. Hide is a first time feature film made in Los Angeles, a psychological thriller mainly created by a Chinese young female filmmaker, with great help and hard work from so many talented casts and crews from different parts of the world. Hide wants to send its messages to people whoever is encountering dilemmas when facing with choices in life’s path. Hide is running in festivals around the world and looking for. more opportunities to exhibit. to the world. Read more>>

Ellen Crofts

The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on was a series of steel and fiber sculptures that I made a few years ago. I had been re-learning how to crochet (my grandmother taught me when I was a kid) and teaching myself how to knit, and I wanted to figure out how to bring those processes into art-making. Read more>>

Brad Herzog

Many years ago, I wrote an article for the Cornell (my alma mater) alumni magazine about Carolyn Goodman. She was the mother of Andy Goodman, who was one of three civil rights workers murdered by the KKK in rural Mississippi in June 1964. Andy and his colleagues were “Freedom Summer” volunteers working to secure voting rights for the state’s Black residents. Read more>>

Linzi Chen

My series work “Carousel” is one of the milestone projects for me in the past few years. My motivation came from my favorite fashion designer from the UK, Alexander Mcqueen. Personally, I spent over seven years studying and working in the fashion design industry before going to FIT to pursue a master’s degree in illustration. It’s a valuable experience for me and my creations. Read more>>

Nicole Murray

I am the co-founder, alongside Paige Henderson, of Svelte Dog Productions, a queer-led production company that seeks to defy the boundaries of both genre and industry. We mix playful storytelling with the visceral complexities of the human experience while focusing on uplifting hindered stories. We work to advance representation in the film industry, both through the stories told on screen and with the team behind the camera. Read more>>

Clarke Rigsby

Too many to narrow it to just one; Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Frankie Valli , Tower of Power etc. but, if I must I’d have to say doing so many records with the great Jazz musician Joey DeFrancesco. Not only was he one of the most creative, accomplished musicians on the planet but, because we worked together for so long he became family to me. Read more>>

Sean Danconia

I grew up enthralled with the works of Osamu Tezuka—the Godfather of Anime and Manga (Astro Boy, Black Jack, Unico, etc.), even if sometimes I wasn’t aware that the same creative mind had touched all of these works. In fact, The Lion King is actually on Kimba the White Lion and that goes back to Walt’s relationship and admiration for Tezuka. Read more>>

Anthony ( Seper ) Torcasio

“All of my projects hold personal significance, but one stands out for its unique nature and profound sentimental value. Unexpectedly, I received an email from Leah Douglas, the art director of Philadelphia International Airport, inviting me to participate in the ‘It’s a Wrap 2’ project. She requested a meeting to explore the designated location for the project within the airport premises. Read more>>

Jenna Marotta

My most meaningful project would probably be when I wrote/produced a special song for the Songs of Love organization. I had one month to prepare a fully produced original song for a little girl who had stage 4 neuroblastoma cancer. She was 4 years old at the time. I got my team together and we wrote “Zoya’s Song”. She listened to it on repeat to and from her radiation appointments. I’m proud to say she is now 13 years old and cancer free! Music heals!!! Read more>>

Bao Er Ho

I was honored to work at Arrivant – a game publisher building the next era of sociable online gaming communities. I was specifically working on their auto battler title, StarGarden. It is a social game – built to hang out and strategize with friends. It is built on uniquely interesting lore and beautiful one-of-a-kind creatures that you can collect and battle with. Read more>>

Adam Budd

For the past two years, I’ve embarked on projects that have become deeply meaningful to me. In 2022, I decided to encapsulate my year in one single project. A project I dubbed ‘twenty (twenty) two – year in review’ is a collection of photos from my year, songs, and titles that echo the emotions from those experiences–each taking the digital form of a working vinyl record. Read more>>

Patricia Qaiyyim

As a woman who served on active duty in the United States Air Force while raising her child, I was often asked why I chose to be a mom and serve in the Armed Forces. This question came from family, friends, co-workers, and sometimes people I barely knew. While serving, I wasn’t doing anything unusual, mainly because I was serving beside other women raising their children while serving in uniform. While I did not enjoy leaving my children for days or months due to military obligations, for me, it was as normal as wearing the uniform. Read more>>

Jena Benton

I have always loved picture books. I think I fell in love from the very first one I ever read and dreamed of writing and illustrating my own some day. Yet life takes its twists and turns and it wasn’t until 2014 that I decide someday should be now. I have always drawn and always written, but by this point I had written and published poetry, as well as weekly movie reviews in a campus newspaper. I thought “how hard can picture books be” as almost every newbie to the genre does. How little did I know! Read more>>

Emily Mullet

When I committed to a career as a full-time artist, I knew the expectation of spending all day every day in the studio would lead to burnout. To balance my energy, I began dividing my year into seasons. For several months, my focus would be on creating art for a large collection release. After the collection release had come and gone, I knew it would be most effective to exercise a completely different part of my brain. Read more>>

Tom Dyer

Apparently I need to put a question in this box for a panel discussion. When it comes to meaningful projects, who determines if a given project is meaningful?

Kayla Borbolla

I find that the most meaningful projects for me aren’t the big moments, but the little ones. I think the most meaningful of those for me is an ongoing one for a friend of mine. When I first started photography she was one of the first ones to ask me to take photos for her. Read more>>

Carla Damron

Writing my novel, The Orchid Tattoo, was therapy for me. As a social worker and advocate, I’d been involved in promoting anti-human trafficking legislation in my home state of South Carolina. This work introduced me to some amazing people: survivors of trafficking, law enforcement, attorneys, counselors–all who knew much more about the prevalence of this awful crime than I did. Read more>>

Jessi Aylward

I love this question because I don’t personally believe there should only be one and so strictly so. I believe there’s different degrees of meaning, and I’m not trying to be sappy, I’m being honest. If you were to ask me this in the sense of my career my answer would be, a project I worked on for The North Face, where we created a TNF look a like to a New York Taxi (TLC), prior to Lyft/Uber being huge) and we built a custom screen that if people played with they could find easter eggs where we would take them out of the city. Read more>>

Jungmin Lee

Recently, I was working on a project named Pacific Rim 16: Re-set. It was a group project collaboration between ArtCenter College of Design and Tama Art University in Japan. The project focuses on spatial design, “finding meaning in urban chaos.” From this project, I was able to meet new people from different majors, backgrounds, and countries. Read more>>

Jocelyn Rainey

In 1998, I accepted a job as an art teacher (with no teaching experience) at an all-male alternative Catholic high school. They labeled the school “last chance” for young men in trouble. In 2007, seven years of teaching passed, and I wondered if my students would ever see the artwork they had duplicated and studied historically. One day, I asked my 11th-grade art class, “Do you want to go on a field trip?” Of course, they responded with a rousing “Yes!” Five students, one male chaperone, and I traveled to France the following year. Read more>>

Abby Thomason

It’s hard to narrow it down to just one piece. My taxidermy art is something I created to bring awareness and beauty to the idea of death and loss. These pieces are an exaggerated example of life taking over after an animal passes. I want the viewer to see that from death new life begins and it is so beautiful. Read more>>

Krystle Dos Santos

I feel very fortunate to say that all the projects I currently have on rotation are all meaningful to me. I think it was post covid that this really came to be. The process of things slowing almost to a stop both let the work that didn’t have as much value or meaning fall away, while highlighting the projects that really fed my soul and gave me such joy and purpose.  Read more>>

Morgiana Celeste Varricchio

Mosaic Dance Theater Company began from an opportunity to present the dance and folklore of the Mediterranean region as part of a guest artist series. It became evident then, that the diverse cultural heritage of this area, especially North Africa and the Middle East, deserved a wider range of appreciation. And, that Middle Eastern dance, which I had studied and practiced for many years was a legitimate dance form and needed to be presented in theatrical mode. Read more>>

Katelyn King

Most of my projects are extremely meaningful to me, but if I had to choose one at this moment I’d have to say my most recent project entitled: A DC Love Story. A collage including portraits of around 300 DC-based artists and creatives. I’m originally from Montgomery County, Maryland but moved away when I was 11. Read more>>