The Ability To Hear In Color Helped This Woman Become An Artist

We’ve previously explored the condition of synesthesia, which is known as color hearing. People living with a type of synesthesia automatically associate what they hear with colors. We came across this article from a Missouri woman who lives with synesthesia and we were struck by what it’s like to live in her world and how this ability has benefited her life.

Kerry Hirth began playing the piano when she was 3 or 4 years old. From that moment, she always saw colors to the music she was playing.

The Columbia Missourian reports: “As a little girl, she said, the connection was so natural and obvious in her mind that she thought everyone had the same experience. ‘I didn’t even realize that my experience of music was different until I was around 37,’ she said.”

In the meantime she went to college, earned a law degree and got married. One day, she decided to make a birthday gift for her husband — who is also an attorney. Hirth grabbed a box of colored chalk, listened to one of Bach’s preludes and colored what she heard. The end result was a band of different colors (just think of a multi-hued bar code). When Hirth discussed her work, she didn’t refer to the colors she saw, instead she described them by their notes.

Her husband was amazed by what he saw.

Eventually, Hirth began to take art classes in the hopes of improving her hobby. But as she participated in more art shows and sold some of her pieces she became encouraged by her skills. Now, she is a full-time artist who is preparing for her third solo exhibit and sells 24 paintings a year!

As she has formalized her art education, she has broadened her scope from music to nature.

“Longing for more freedom and new directions, she has recently turned to nature for inspiration. She has done several pieces that express the sounds and sights of the forest, for example. She may use color bands to reflect a sunset at Finger Lakes State Park or a deer drinking water from a creek or layered rocks in the desert. The result is work that has become more complex and interesting, said Judith Joseph, Hirth’s art teacher in Highland Park. ‘It’s very unique,” she said. “It’s not just music anymore.’”

It is interesting to think where Hirth’s life may have taken her if she had not lived with synesthesia.

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