About Kathleen Karlsen
Kathleen Karlsen is a writer, artist and composer exploring the powerful connections between sacred sound and symbols. She has held over 70 exhibits of her colorful paintings and led over 600 musical events in recent years. She has been studying religious traditions, the impact of art, and the deeper mysteries in life since childhood.
Kathleen’s spiritual path has been her main focus since her teenage years. After experiencing abuse by a Catholic priest, she began to search with great intensity to find a God outside of her childhood religion. This search took her through a wide array of beliefs. Kathleen attended spiritual conferences and visited every possible religious organization in her teens and twenties.
Eventually she joined a spiritual community with rigorous daily devotional practices and lived there for over a decade. Today Kathleen and her husband Andrew live just outside Bozeman, Montana near the beautiful Bridger Mountains on a small urban homestead. Their five adult children reside in the nearby town. Kathleen continues to write, teach and lead events regularly.
Kathleen shares her life experiences, research, and thoughts in nearly 200 published articles and over 100 videos on YouTube. She is also the author of two books: Flower Symbols (2011) and Vocal Medicine (2019). Kathleen’s passion for sharing the transformative power of the arts continues to be the driving force in her life.Â
Resources: Learn more about Vocal Medicine Music and the Living Arts Studio. Watch a video of Kathleen’s story of her spiritual search: Finding God After Abuse. A listing of the dozens of articles included on this website can be found on the Site Map.Â
Education and Professional Certifications
Kathleen holds a BA in studio art and an MA in humanities. Her graduate research culminated in her thesis entitled The Color-Music Connection: Philosophical, Aesthetic and Scientific Perspectives. She has also completed a year of doctoral studies in adult education. Kathleen holds numerous professional certifications in business management and in a variety of alternative health modalities. She also has three levels of training from the Kirtan Leadership Institute.
Kathleen’s voice over work includes training videos for companies with an international client base. Kathleen has narrated over 3,000 educational videos. Her clear, comforting voice leads the listener step-by-step through complex tasks. Kathleen has the ability to transform complex topics into an easy-to-understand narrative. Her goal is always to support, inform and uplift her audience.Â