KAREN VAN OUTRYVE began her study of Aesthetic Realism with its founder Eli Siegel in 1968. She is a poet, consultant, and actress with The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company.  Together with Margot Carpenter, she teaches “Poetry & Liking the World,” a class for children based on the Aesthetic Realism understanding of poetry, at the Queens Public Library and elsewhere.

In public seminars at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, she has discussed the life and work of women noted in literature and music—including Anna Hempstead Branch, Edith Sitwell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sylvia Plath, Aretha Franklin, Eartha Kitt, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Isabel Allende, addressing questions that most concern women today, such as:

• “How Can Men and Women Trust Each Other in Love?”
• “Can a Woman Really Know Herself?—& Does She Want To?”
• “What Do Children & Parents Really Want from Each Other?”

Ms. Van Outryve’s writing about Aesthetic Realism and music is published in the Music Educator’s Journal. Formerly associated with the American International Music Fund and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, she has described how Aesthetic Realism explains the beauty of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and John Philip Sousa, among others.  She is also co-editor, with Margot Carpenter, of The Critical Muse, an anthology of poems frequently used in consultations because they illustrate Aesthetic Realism.

Ms. Van Outryve is married to architect and Aesthetic Realism consultant Anthony C. Romeo, and they live in New York City.