Looking Up!

Katherine Klimitas is a New Orleans-based artist, graphic designer and entrepreneur who motivates her listeners to "find their something" and contribute to society in whatever way they can. After breaking 500 bones by the time she was ten years old, losing all of her worldly possessions to a hurricane, and dealing with the death of a parent at a young age, she is through taking excuses about why people CAN'T and instead focuses on why people DON'T.

Katherine believes that everyone has something to give and that by "finding that something", you will not only reach your full potential as a human being but also enrich the lives of those around you. She challenges her listeners to imagine what life would be like if every member of society fulfilled their potentials and gives her audience guidelines to help them to find their somethings based on her own experiences.
Katherine sold her first watercolor at age 10 and expresses her family's life-long love of animals through her meticulous life-like paintings. Her parents made sure she always attended a mainstream school, allowing her to teach her classmates about disability without even trying. She believes that by simply including disabled children in mainstream schools, much of society’s ignorance about disability could be elimited. She earned a B.A. from Loyola University in 2011, and today at age 30, runs her multifaceted business KAK ART & Designs from home. When clients learn that Katherine has Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, they are captivated by her unique perspective. She's 2 feet 7 inches tall, gets around in an electric wheelchair, and creates all of her art, jewelry and commercial graphic design while lying on her side.
Her book, Looking Up, is a glimpse into Katherine's world, a world unlike most. Because she spends most of her time in an electric wheelchair or lying down, she spends a lot of her time actually looking up. Though the book began as her college senior project, it evolved shortly thereafter into her story, complete with anecdotes, humor, and powerful photography. It is through the experiences detailed in Looking Up that Katherine encourages her audience how to become a fulfilling member of society.