A multi-arts approach to writing

Classical music on the radio, a panoramic view from the window, ballet steps while the kettle boils, a family saga or two - they're all helping me to write - I'm sure they are! Even acting-out 'red things' with infant school pupils in yesterday's Colour poetry workshop is adding in, pushing words and concepts forward. For me, one art inspires another.

If only I'd had training in more of them at school! I knew then that arts plural were for me: all arts, no sciences. But that selection wasn't on the agenda, of course, at GCSE level, or O' Level as it was then. The choice was art or music. Drama wasn't even on the list, even at my posh, paying school. So when it came to A' Level, I was only qualified to take one art in addition to English - oh, and the English was literature, not language, so even that wasn't, strictly speaking, an art: it was the study of other people's creativity. Nor have options broadened all that much since, it seems, depending on school and type, at least. The curriculum equips us slightly for everything, but may leave us floundering in our chosen fields if we're not very careful or lucky, especially, perhaps, those of us on the arts side.

I include as many arts as possible in my poetry workshops, even if just in passing: I do so because it pays off. Singing or rhythm-clapping will spark ideas in one child, acting in another, while others gaze at the pictures or glaze over on hearing the sample poem. When possible, I supply theme-relevant toys and artefacts too, and while some children may pretty much ignore them, others will transform the items into characters and invent a whole scene or story with them. Some youngsters, I find, come into their own on the rare occasions that time allows for craftwork, music-setting, or a multi-faceted performance. And if such prompts and triggers work for children, why not for adults? Perhaps artists (using the word in the broad sense) should invest in the participation of other arts as a matter of course - as part and parcel of their work, especially those who, like me, were arts-starved at school. No wonder so many writers suffer from writer's block! 

Well, that's my excuse, anyway, for all my 'time-wasting' and mess-making around the house. I go over the top with those picture displays for my workshops, you see: I go to town, quite unnecessarily for the most part, with coloured paper, crayons, felt pens, glitter and glue, leaves, petals, you name it, all strewn over the living-room carpet while, with any luck, the morning sun streams in. I'll have the energising pulse and heart-lifting chords of Bach's piano concertos, too, ringing in the air to spur me on. Then it's a few clashing, crashing chords of my own on the piano, and perhaps a clumsy dance round the kitchen while the coffee's brewing, and suddenly a long-abandoned poem idea is coming together before my eyes, from where, I'm not sure. From under those keys? From between the coloured papers? From under my dancing feet?

I never got my maths O' Level, but have never missed it. It's those other subjects I need. Do all artists need other arts in their lives, I wonder?