Who inspires your creativity? Play Together calls artists for new collaboration

Play Together is putting out the call for its third collaborative art project.

The Chicago-based arts education organization partnered with Grammy-winning producer Nico Segal and muralist Nikko Washington, both of Chicago, to break down boundaries and introduce creators to musical and visual collaborations with these hometown artistic heroes.

Using the prompt "Who inspires your creativity?," artists are invited to share work in one of two ways.

Segal (who formerly performed as Donnie Trumpet and has worked with Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper & The Social Experiment, among others) has created a musical composition musicians can download and use as a base for their own work, either by remixing it, adding rap, vocals or new instrumentals.

Alternately, renowned painter Washington devised a mural, now installed at the Merit School of Music, that artists can re-create in their own style, incorporate into a painting or create a completely new piece in response to the prompt.

Submissions, which opened last week, will be reviewed by Segal and Washington, and their favorite entries will be turned into NFTs to benefit Play Together's nonprofit programs and earn the artists a scholarship toward arts education, supplies or other arts-career expensesS.

The deadline for entries is Dec. 1. Visit playtogether.co for details on the project and Play Together's programs.