Divya Marie Kato’s Forthcoming Book: When In Doubt, Draw
Divya’s currently working on a book about her life’s work with creativity. The book, When In Doubt, Draw, features drawings and stories and explores the question: “What helps us get over doubts & difficult times?” For her it’s always been drawing.
The book serves as a memoir and map and includes 25 drawing prompts to share the benefits Divya has learned along the way. The book also features the exchange, Drawings for Stories, which Divya initiated in order to learn more from others.
An intimate window into how pencil and paper, worth so much more than their separate parts, have always helped her move forward.
This is a book born out of a life of creativity, which accounts for how I literally drew myself out of and through many of life’s ups and downs:
constant uprooting and travel, divorce and marriage, abandonment and reunion, bankruptcy and stability, cancer and healing, heartbreak and learning to love again, moving to foreign lands and building a new life
The stories and experiences that shape a human life and ones most of us share – from all over the world, with the experience of many cultures, all the way over to the beautiful life I’ve built for myself here in Japan.
What I’ve learned along the way, with people from all walks of life, in almost every environment imaginable, has served me well and I have much to share about how art plays a fundamental role in our development and should not be left behind in school: supporting curiousity, learning, inquiry and self discovery, self development in processing our experiences and our stories, in sparking ideas and forging fresh ways forwards – a bigger vision of collective peace and meaningful work, always at the fore.
My big picture purpose is to revolutionise drawing by getting it out of the atelier and into every day life.
Take the label ‘drawing’ off. Take the labels ‘good’ and ‘bad’ off. Take the label ‘art’ off. (you may need to tug a little) Less how. More why.
In order to learn more from the stories of others, I created an exchange:
Drawings for Stories
Leaving out money as I wanted to explore value. I posted a drawing to Instagram, every day, to give away. To receive the drawing for free, I asked that others share:
1) Why they connected with it
2) Their biggest doubt/difficult time
3) What helps them move forward
100 Drawings Now In Countries All Over The World
Drawings below are from the exchange. To view more drawings by Divya Marie Kato:
Drawings Click Here | Portfolio Click Here
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
These drawings are from the exchange. To view more drawings by Divya Marie Kato, follow her updates via click here and for her full portfolio click here.
