Carol Steen is a world-renowned artist who lives in New York City. She is also a synesthete who sees letters and number as colors, and sublimely captures her combined senses in her paintings. Here, Carol talks about her synesthesia (known as "grapheme-color"), feeling different as a child, and the breakthrough that allowed her to finally embrace her gift. You can also see Carol's artwork here, and read about her organization, the American Synesthesia Association.
Q: How does synesthesia affect people?
A: Synesthesia impacts people of different disciplines. Neuroscientists like it because it gives them a different way to map the brain. You're also eight times more likely to go into the arts if you have synesthesia. Theology -- there are references that can only be about synesthesia in the Bible. When Moses goes to Mount Sinai, there is a huge thunder and lightning storm, and in Exodus it says, " ... and the people saw the sounds." Scholars puzzled over that line, but if you're a synesthete with colored shapes or sounds, of course, you would see it.
Q: Do you think synesthesia is genetic?
A: Researchers believe it's genetic, and you have to look to your family to see who's got it. It seems to go mother-to-son, mother-to-daughter or father-to-daughter. There are very few father-to-son transmissions.
Q: When did you first realize you saw the world differently?
A: I was walking home from school with a classmate, and I said to her, "The letter A is the prettiest pink!" But she told me, "You're weird." And I thought, "Well, I won't tell you what B looks like." It silenced me.
Once, when I was 20, I was back from school and having dinner with my family. I was talking to my father, and for some reason, I announced, "The number 5 is yellow." He said, "No, it's more like yellow ochre." My mother and brother looked puzzled, but I realized I wasn't alone.
My father was always very reticent about revealing anything about synesthesia. It was a generational thing. Men didn't want to admit to emotions at all, especially the ones surrounding synesthesia -- confusion, isolation, that kind of thing.
Through the years, I would take people into my confidence. And when I was teaching at the University of Michigan, I told a woman about it. She said, "There's a name for it," but the classic definition said "colored sound" but not letters. But nonetheless, now I had a word, a concept -- now I could hone my search.
When I was 49, I was working as a sculptor. There was one day when I would've taken my Walkman to work with me, but the batteries weren't working.
I had told people there about synesthesia, hoping I'd hear that echo. On this same day, on NPR, Richard Cytowic was on talking about his book, The Man Who Tasted Shapes." The woman next to me took the headphones off and handed them to me. I burst into tears. I couldn't see to sculpt, so I just put my head down. I listened. I didn't realize that something life-changing was going on. Thirty people had gathered. I picked my head up ... warm smiles of knowing something life-altering had happened, but not knowing what it meant.
I called Richard's publicist and asked to speak to him -- I told her I was a synesthete. But she said, "Oh dear, you can't be. It's very rare!"
Q: What made you begin the American Synesthesia Association (ASA)?
A: Pat [Duffy, co-founder and fellow synesthete] and I wondered -- is there something we could do so that we could make it easier? Because it took me 42 years. So we started the ASA. We're a public charity, and the only recognized organization in the U.S. for synesthetes. We put on conferences; our next will be in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada from Sept. 26 to 28.
Q: Do you feel at home with your gift now?
A: I still have a lot of questions. One is, "What does it mean to have synesthesia," and the other is, "Why me?" But the difference is now I have lots of people I can talk to.
With color grapheme, the shape of the letter seems to indicate color. If there's an alphabet I don't recognize, I see it in black and white. But the minute someone pronounces the letters, they go into color.
Every time I'm invited to Juilliard, I always start the lecture asking how many people think they have synesthesia? By the end, there are always three or four.
Q: What kind of questions do people ask you?
A: People always want to know the color of my name. C is a cerulean blue, like Jamaican waters. A is a wonderful pink -- an alizarin crimson. R is cadmium, O is white and L is black with blue highlights. Pat and I have been arguing about L. She thinks it's a delicate yellow. I suggested she take vitamins, so she can see it the same way I do; she thinks I should learn my color wheel!