Working on something meaningful is a common desire – but how? We started asking folks to share the story of how they ended up working on a project they felt was meaningful because we wanted inspiration but also because we wondered if hearing from people from across a range of industries would help us identify patterns making it more likely for anyone to be able to find and work on projects that they would find meaningful.

Susie Tallman

Every project I have worked on has been meaningful in different ways. Music has been an opportunity for me to do something I love and hopefully something that can bring people together. Read more>>

Michelle Mary Schaefer

Setting up Annabelle Louise Productions has been the most meaningful time in my career. At the same time, I was working extremely hard as an Actor, Screenwriter, Director, etc, navigating my career with tons of oppression and discrimination. I knew deep in my heart I had to do something about it. Read more>>

Courtney Weston

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is any time I’ve gotten to sew for my children. I have been a maker my whole life and before having children, I owned a leather company that created personalized leather goods and shipped them all around the world. While that was a fulfilling time in my life, I closed the business before my daughter was born. Read more>>

Finn O’Sullivan

I recently released an EP called “Fine Things” in October. This project definitely felt very meaningful and exciting to me for a couple different reasons. I’m a really big fan of the show Our Flag Means Death, and sort of fell down a rabbit hole of writing music inspired by the show and the characters last year. Read more>>

Kathy Mohl

The most meaningful project for me was my recent Artist in Residency at the Glen Arbor Art Association. I am consider that a project because I submitted my entry and defined what I planned to do during the residency should I be selected, and then once I was selected I had to follow through with my proposal. It is meaningful because I had never participated in an artist residency before and it was truly a transformational experience. Read more>>

Vesper Guo

[nonplace.site](http://nonplace.site) is a long-term project that holds a special significance for me on multiple levels. Commencing as my thesis project earlier this year, nonplace.site served as an online public space modeled after the file system found in a personal MacOS computer. Retaining its original form, the website has recently transformed into an online exhibition, serving as a pavilion for The Wrong Biennale. This exhibition will be available for viewing from November 1st, 2023, through March 31st, 2024. Read more>>

Bobby Miller Jr.

The most meaningful project I’ve been a part of has been The Bird Comedy Theater. In the summer of 2021 at dinner, my brother Blake who is an entrepreneur asked me when I planned on going out and starting my own place. I had no intentions of such an undertaking but I told him that I did know of some friends who had entertained the idea. He told me to tell them to get a business plan together and he’d listen to their pitch. Read more>>

Claire Greenberg

Watering Hole Collective is a team of actors, teachers, and artists with over a decade of combined experience in the Dallas-Fort Worth theater community who are united by our desire to create meaningful theater experiences for both our audiences and our artists. We began our first project Spring Awakening to create a space, an oasis, for artists to participate in meaningful theatrical experiences that ignite community conversations and impact social change. Read more>>

Cynthia Mason

[CynthiaMason_2.jpg here please] A project I would love to share with you is my mixed-media installation titled ‘Secret Garden’ (2022-2023) exhibited at the Warner Gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University in September 2023. In this site-specific installation, I draw parallels between our present-day climate crisis and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD—an event that entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum under volcanic pumice and ash for 1500 years. The installation is comprised of approximately 100 individual pieces of work. Read more>>

Brandin Hurley

One project that has been incredibly special for me to explore is my new collection “Reliquaries”. It is inspired by the reverential practice of creating elaborate shrines for holy relics. My reliquaries lovingly house pollinator seeds to showcase and preserve them. With the natural world in such obvious peril, I am feeling an overwhelming urgency to guard and treasure those things we stand to lose. Read more>>

Paolo Giuseppe Sanna

What defines art as such, according to my personal vision, starts from the assumption of artistic expression as a necessary need, of a gesture and a moment in which the inner movements of the creator are reflected in the surrounding environment, framing it through its own emotional filter and, vice versa, through the sensations and emotions that the synergistic relationship with the environment gives us, mutating us and our vision. Read more>>

Tom Misuraca

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on has been being writer-in-residence for Roaring Epiphany Production Company (RepC). Read more>>

Sonya Giddings

All of my projects are meaningful to me. I have a new project a feature film called Two Faced Ray that is being produced under the sag-aftra micro budget agreement. This is my first feature film and will be taped completely in person. This is something dear to my heart, it took me about two months to write the script. Read more>>

JEAC

To begin with I was involved in several pop hits from 2014 onwards but it was not until 2016 when I took my project more seriously as I received a contract offer with a UK distributor and that was when I realized that I had something well developed and I had to give it more time and effort to achieve my goals which were to reach many people and have my music played around the world so yes JEAC is my most significant project to date. Read more>>

Robert Casavant

To me, art represents fragments of the soul, expressed outwardly and released into the universe. For this reason, it’s impossible for me to pick one project I’ve been a part of as the most meaningful. Read more>>

Lily Larsen

I have learned through experience that the way to gain self esteem is to do “esteemable acts.” By organizing meaningful gatherings and uplifting events for the betterment of my community, I know that putting ideas into action is achievable. The by-product is that it has given me a sense of purpose and belonging. Read more>>

Eriko Kobayashi

My meaningful project is the “Box Series.” I constantly seek everyday objects that can connect with people, recreating these objects in materials that I consider precious, such as glass. My mother was someone who held onto everything, and when I opened the closet, it was jam-packed with organized items in plastic bins. Read more>>

Jordan Rice

I recently produced a feature film titled All Alone Together. This film was shot and edited by over 150 USC students, most of whom are currently in school. I helped create this film alongside Alex Nimrod (Writer/Star), Maximus Jenkins (Director), and Kaleb Manske (Cinematographer and Editor). Read more>>

Elisa Monsalve

The most meaningful project to me is Estudio Pirata. Estudio Pirata was born in 2019. It is a project with my best friend Ignacio Ortega, who is an illustrator too. Read more>>

Michelle Mary Schaefer

I have worked on several meaningful projects, and they all are my scripts. They all are significant because they are beyond authentic, written by a screenwriter who is Deaf, me. Most Deaf stories, themes, and/or characters are written by a hearing person and, therefore, not Deaf. You must be Deaf to understand and experience those characters and stories. Read more>>

Mariel Mendez Ledezma

One of the projects that have been most meaningful has been bringing art to children without immediate access to artistic materials. Within my organization I have been able to develop my altruistic side of which I am proud to contribute a little of myself to the world. Read more>>

Zijun Zhao

“A Joyful Funeral (喜丧)” in the Chinese traditional sense refers to the death of the elderly without disaster and disease, but I keep thinking that if people are old, their appearance and physical function are not as young as they are, and they have many troubles with the growth of age for no reason, so why is it “喜” （joy）? Read more>>

Julie Craig

Making my first album, FROM HERE, has so far been the most meaningful project of my life. It was the first time I embraced the true uniqueness of my voice. Not just my actual singing voice, but my voice as an artist too. Read more>>

Love For All

KAE: We recently released our first ever EP titled ‘Yearbook.’ The project came about as we were reflecting on our experiences in school, particularly high school. REACH: We wanted to capture a snippet of the breadth of feelings high schoolers experience, from carefree summer days to first crushes to stress and loss. High school can be tough, but it can also be an amazing time of growth, fun, and learning like it was for us. Read more>>

Sophie Emma Wells

The meaningful project I’ve worked on recently has to be the short film I wrote and directed titled Overworked. Read more>>

Jennifer Lusk Dana Compton

We love to support and empower women just as Jackie Collins did. That is why we feature a weekly quote from Nasty Women Posters: Wise Words from Women Who Changed the World by Cider Mill Press. Read more>>

Tinks Lovelace

shot almost entirely in split screen, by first time writer/director Tinks Lovelace, ‘people you meet’ is a feel good indie comedy about two quirky loners meeting at a speed-friending event. Read more>>

Geoffrey Prather

I recently wrote and directed a short film called “A Mind Cannot Touch”, which had a deeply personal inspiration. In addition, as someone who has had many near misses in the entertainment industry, I had grown tired of hearing from agents, managers and studios during pitch meetings that my lack of experience was one of the main reasons a project didn’t get off the ground. Anyone can see the catch-22 that creates, so I finally decided to do a crowdfunding campaign so I could bring a script to life and create art completely on my own terms. Read more>>

Alex Romney

Oh man, many projects, but I would definitely have to say the Lovely Vegan Fashion (& Goods) Series. These are where I share vegan fashion, style, accessories, & trends mixed with uplifting messages & accompanied by vegan foods, makeup, snacks, treats, & so on. Read more>>

Clay Steakley

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is the multidisciplinary work, The Fire Cycle. It comprises poetry, music, film, and live performance all in one kind of art bottle universe with its own logic and philosophies. For so many years as an artist — particularly as an actor and writer — I surrendered power to outside forces like casting directors, producers, and publishers. I spent a very long time essentially waiting for permission to be creative! Read more>>

Yuli Zorrilla

My most meaningful project I have worked on thus far has been “This Fool” on HULU. In a time where Latinos are not always given an authentic representation on television they gave me the opportunity to play a woman that is bold, unapologetically herself and on top of that who knows what she wants out of life but especially for her daughter and that makes it really special. On top of that everyone from the creators to the writers to the crew made such a safe and wonderful environment. Read more>>

Luis Sahagun

I was not supposed to make it. As an undocumented child growing up in an impoverished Chicago suburb surrounded by police corruption and violence, my future was bleak. I had to camouflage myself in toughness in order to survive and nearly lost myself to the streets. Read more>>

Alexis Lewis

One of my most meaningful projects I’ve worked on to date is my pieces photographed from my trip across the country and back. Read more>>

Maryn Masumiya

The most meaningful projects that I’ve worked on have been the custom clay sculptures I’ve done for people’s weddings, anniversaries, special holidays, and memorials. Read more>>

Anateya Cranson

10 years ago,I attended a wedding with a friend.Being at an “eligible” age for marriage, we began discussing why people get married, what makes a marriage last or end, and if is there a “one”. I really started to wonder [something]. Read more>>

Johanna Heilman

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my recent solo album entitled When We Were Electric. This album is deeply personal as it details my experience going through breast cancer treatment. Writing such an intense album was both cathartic and challenging but I’m very proud of how it turned out. Read more>>

Kobina Wright

One of the most meaningful projects, was create the short film titled, “Two Three.” It started out as just a script that I wrote. It was wild and weird but it was in my head and I had to get it out. It was one of the many scripts I’d written and had done nothing with. It sat for years collecting virtual desk. Read more>>

Bäsmini

A project I’ve really been attached to is ‘Emergencies’. This project allowed me to open a new side of myself and let go of issues pertaining to love, lust, and moving on. Read more>>

Braden Erickson

The most emotionally meaningful projects for me have to do with my loved ones or something else that I care deeply about. I feel fueled by the energy of others whether they are with me or not. I have to be on top of my game because the work I’m making is representing more than just me. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I’m creating for myself, but there’s just something about giving to others through my work. Read more>>

Shaghayegh Cyrous

I can recall two transformative projects that have significantly influenced my artistic journey, infusing it with profound meaning. Read more>>

Heather Ross

Last year after organizing some holiday-themed pop-ups at the Good Bar, myself and some other local artists and DJs formed an art collective named Good Bad art club. Our goal was to help other artists have a free space to sell and gain recognition and to highlight local musicians and DJs – both new and established, Read more>>

Chandler Powell, Cooper Powell, Caleb Ayers, Camden Skidmore

Every project we take on has a meaningful message and story. Our first album “Remember When” dealt with a lot of emotions we were dealing with at the time which made the album sad. We ended up removing this project because of the production quality but you can find the single “Otherside” still out there. Read more>>

Teresa Catherine

For a long time, I resisted being a mulit-hyphenate. I wanted to be an ACTOR. And I feared if I did anything else, I would not be considered an actor. After all, as is constantly repeated in college programs across the country – if there’s something else you can/want to do, you should do that instead. (PS This is so damaging and toxic – I beg you to stop saying this shit). Read more>>

Allyson Cohen

Over a year ago now, I founded Concert Music Outreach Collective; a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring concert stage music to those who may not be able to attend a normal concert. We perform at hospitals, shelters, and prisons to share and teach our love of concert music to members of the community in need. Read more>>

Holden Ausborn

yesdude! (Holden Ausborn, Milo Kenny, Wells Whitman) just released our first EP in a few years, entitled “Doodles”. It was a very special project for us, as not only was it the first batch of songs that are out to the public in a while, these were also the first songs that we wrote with our drummer Milo Kenny after he joined the band last year. I think it’s interesting to think about this new era of the band that we’re in because we hadn’t been able to play live between 2020 and 2022 because of covid. Read more>>