FEEL SOMETHING, MAKE SOMETHING

In this guidebook, artist and educator Caitlin Metz encourages readers to let go of self-judgment and make art as a way to identify and label difficult emotions, preserve feelings of wonder and joy, and embrace the multitude of feelings we, as humans, regularly experience.

What if instead of suppressing our feelings, we learned to collaborate with them? This is the basis of FEEL SOMETHING, MAKE SOMETHING. Caitlin Metz believes that making art - whether it's a detailed scribble on a crumpled receipt or a 100-day series of photos - gives your feelings a physical form and provides space to observe them from a distance. To help kickstart your creative process, Metz offers tutorials on zine-making (complete with a pull-out DIY zine to keep in your wallet), drawing, bodymapping, mindmapping, self-portraiture, and writing personal manifestos.

This act of creation can be a form of release, documentation, ritual, conversation, or disruption. You may choose to sustain your feeling, to channel it into your work, or to shift it completely. To feel something and make something is both an invitation to take a breath and an opportunity to shift your perspective.

FEEL SOMETHING, MAKE SOMETHING is not about making perfectly polished works of art. The outcome of your art-making is arbitrary. The process is the work.

Caitlin Metz is an artist and educator who works across mediums to visually communicate a sense of belonging and make the world feel a little less lonely. The co-author of MY BODY, MY HOME: A Radical Guide to Resilience and Belonging, Caitlin uses art as a means of processing feelings and disrupting systems of power with tenderness and empathy.