The history of Katherine Rudolph and her qualifications

Exploring The Word in Colour and Speech is now available at the Melbourne Therapy Centre, at Katherine's home-office, in schools and in residences for challenged individuals of all ages.

Interest in artistic colour harmony has evolved into therapeutic paintings to benefit schools, institutions, private collections and illustrative art.

Wisdom gleaned from the research of J. W Goethe and Rudolf Steiner has provided a basis for art recreation, therapy, curative pedagogy and adult education.

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Imagine! The eye can be experienced as a kind of metamorphosis of the ear and the larynx. Complementary colours echo in the inner eye, as sounds reverberate in the ear. While the lens directs, focuses and connects colour images in the process of seeing, the larynx directs and focuses the flow of language in speech. During the process of painting there is a constant flux between the inner echoing of complementary colours and the outer activity of the brush stroke. Verbal response and illustrative colour representations can thus be evoked to build communication.

The individual, or group of children or adults, assisted by the practitioner, speak using gesture and a story-in-motion may evolve. Interwoven with this activity are narration, formative speech exercises, as well as poetry, drama and children's verses which have a self-assertive, centering effect. Fluency is enhanced, speech disturbances disappear and problems such as lisping and stuttering can be overcome. In each case, visual therapy and therapeutic speech and movement vary according to individual needs.

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Thus, one may experience colour, tactile art, movement, speaking and drama in a mutual process of self-discovery and intercommunication. Universal artistic interpretations objectify, facilitate and enhance perception.

Therapeutic sessions are available by appointment for children adn adults, small groups for curative speech, deaf or autistic patients, as well as people under stress or duress.

Sessions for artists, drama students and teachers are also recommended. Speaking texts in chorus can enhance and benefit community efforts for health and recreation.

Visit: www.exploringtheword.com.au

Contact: info@exploringtheword.com.au

Phone: 0061 3 9729 8819

Melbourne, Victoria

From a Client...

On recommendation from our doctor we took our son who had problems with self esteem, co-ordination and bullying to Katherine Rudolph.

We attended weekly sessions with her for four months during which time she worked with him using many interactive activities taking in especially coordinated exercises, movement, speech, word power and drawing with chalk. This took the form of drama with the theme of courage and strength encompassing all these movements, exercises and rhymes.

We did notice great improvement with our son’s coordination and his self esteem also seemed to improve. She made him feel happy.

He liked very much going to Katherine and was happy to perform with her his play to the extended family on his final visit.

Katherine gave him a booklet with all the many rhymes and stories which they had journeyed with throughout his time with her.

We thank you Katherine.

From Katherine...

I have worked in the artistic therapies of speech formation and painting with patients having pedagogical, psychiatric and disability needs for approximately 20 years.

Creating painting therapy and speech formation programs for disabled residents and patients as well as for school children has enabled me to make new speech exercises and apply creative writing, poetry and, in some cases, new themes in water colour painting.

Interacting with groups of teachers and children has taught me something about the facilities and difficulties in social situations.

I have performed and directed drama and done ‘story-telling-in-motion’ with groups. The differences between working with disabled and ‘normal’ groups and how to carry the activity are becoming clearer.

In my own writing and illustrating, the inspiration out of fantasy and natural science in rhythm and colour has begun to go through changes in the balance between the subjective, the objective and the individualising elements.

Human care and diversional therapy for groups or individuals with geriatric and special needs is an essential counterpart for therapeutic research and artistic creation.

The accomplishment of all the foregoing work is a constantly changing process.

Diplomas

Diploma: The Goetheanum Painting School

Diploma: London School of Speech Formation 1991

Diploma: Dora Gutbrod Schule, Basel, Switzerland 2000

For Further information please contact Katherine Rudolph on 9729 8819 or email info@exploringtheword.com.au

Here is an example of the kinds of approaches that Katherine uses in art and therapy. Please contact her for a demonstration.

An Impulse of Transformation and Growth Through Colour and Word

While working with people in need of special care, I have come upon an impulse for therapeutic use of four arts: painting, speech formation, eurythmy and writing in connection with one another. It can unfold in many directions.

Handicapped people, also so-called normal children and adults who have particular social problems can open up and express themselves gradually better in connection with colour dynamic, colour gesture and colour dialogue. In the case of deaf or mute people, I have experienced improvement in the utterance of vowels and, in one case, the beginning of new abilities to speak, in relation to colour exercises followed by intoning of certain vowels related to them.

The following process is carried through:

The person paints the colour sequence in the technique best suited to the problem.
He hears the corresponding vowel qualities intoned in the same sequence.
He speaks the vowels and experiences the spoken mood and its relation to the painted mood.
He might follow this by doing the vowel sequence in Eurythmy or speaking a little verse in which the rhythm and words evoke the mood which he first experienced in the painting sequence.

One can direct this transformation directly and fine attuned to the art that the person needs for his development. Balance is brought out of the vowels and corresponding colour qualities. Through the speech activity, which has an essentially incarnating effect, a breathing of the aforesaid sequence of colour into rhythm and verse can be brought down into the limbs to deepen and enhance the healing experience. This is, of course, why a beginning to describe a process which one must, of course, observe in order to understand and use for further research. Colour activates the giving aspect in speaking.

But here is another question: To what extent might this therapy be applied to solving shared problems in a wider social sense? What is deafness? To some degree we might all be 'deaf' in relation to understanding truths which we are not evolved enough to grasp, or to qualities in soul and the personality of others who are not akin to our own temperaments. We hear words which are spoken in conversation, but often comprehend a very limited meaning and mistake this for the whole experience.

In a similar way: What is muteness? Handicapped people often cannot express themselves with all the sounds of the alphabet. Some cannot even utter one sound or one intelligible word. While we so-called normal people find ourselves 'mute' in social situations, totally incapable of saying the words that make a social problem comprehensible to one another. Our communication breaks down and we become 'blind' to one another on a soul-spiritual level.

By opening up to the universal qualities inherent in the colours and the vowels and learning to transform a mood from one sphere to the other, a process of social development can begin to evolve through the gradual deepening of individual insight. It may even be possible in time to come to specific experiences in colour paintings, drama and verse (through the process described here) which may provide therapeutic answers to communication problems concerning families and groups of people.

The human eye is a metamorphosis of ear and larynx (1). By using this indication we may find a help in 'seeing' as a process of giving and receiving. The inner eyes has a specific connection to the receiving quality of the ear, that we experience in listening and the complementary colours (ie, the process of 'contemplating' a painting, as it is developing). The outer eye has the opposite connection: The giving quality of the larynx that we experience in speaking. It calls forth the activity of 'focusing' and directing the vision. By various painting techniques one can bring the 'focusing' or 'contemplating' into simultaneous balance. For, indeed the eye is constantly synthesizing these two polarities.

This kind of balance, when applied to the realm of solving shared problems, can be compared to giving a fellow human being his 'space', letting freedom rise in meeting one another fact to face, which is indeed a healing factor in the present time.

- Katherine Rudolph