Phases

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”

Julia Cameron

For anyone who continually works at it – in other words, practices it – there seems to be a familiar process to creativity.  It is a kind of systematic unfolding starting with the germ of an insight and leading to the final realization of it.  We can think of these as phases of the process and an awareness of them should be included in any decent Ingenarium because we want to work through them, not against them.  In a sense, we want to surrender to them.

Yet we should not be too strict about them either, since the order and significance of one or another may vary, overlap, or even be ignored.  The length of time spent, the amount of effort required, the need to do certain things in a certain way…all these depend on the difficulty of the creative challenge, the scope of the effort, the type of project, the limits of the materials, and much more.

The genius of genius is in its ability to overcome the challenges of each phase and move through them before anything undermines the effort.

Ignition           

The initial spark for the project; that moment when a delicious question or challenge or problem arises that may have a solution.  It is the inspiration that something might be possible or at least pose-able, often as a result of irritation, aggravation, or disgust with the way things are.  For this phase to work, we need to be open to new possibilities…or even impossibilities.

Absorption     

To solve problems and take an idea and run with it, we have to be immersed in the world it inhabits.  This is where research and information come into play.  Facts, realities, current truths need to be gathered.  Especially important during this phase is casting a wide net and understanding that failed solutions and imperfect resolutions – even input from other fields – may lead to breakthroughs.

Compression  

Everything known about the challenge has to be organized into some comprehensible framework or we risk getting lost in a sea of information.  This is especially tricky in our world where so much can be gathered so quickly.  In this phase, charts, files, diagrams, and even piles – on the desk or in the head – can help turn a chaos of data into a potential structure that can be evaluated and understood.

Expansion      

In this phase, creative juices flow, materials fly, equations proliferate.  Hunches lead to sketches and models and snippets that may become part of the final project…or not.  The Ingenarium, not to mention the workspace, fills up with material – some part of the solution, some dead ends – any of which may help the process along. 

Percolation     

Also called incubation, this phase offers an important escape from the creative grind.   Most inventive people are familiar with it as a kind of idle, non-working getaway… a vacation from the intense involvement of the project.  It can last a moment or much more and allows unconscious or non-intentional parts of the brain to work on the problem.  This is the phase in which daydreams kick in and potential solutions pop up.

Production

A fully realized project begins to take shape that includes the steps to make it real while working with the strengths and weaknesses of the materials.  Final goals can be set at this phase, which can also be thwarted as the realities of the hard world come into play.  Here, as at any phase, uncharted directions and unexpected challenges can ignite new insights and start the whole process over again.

Revision

Design as re-design, creative work as commentary on what came before.  Nothing made exists outside of a history, an environment, and a context.  At any point along the way, even after the project is done, re-evaluation and revision are possible.  This may give the maker a few proud moments or even decades of acceptance before going back and altering or redoing it.  Creativity is about outcomes but also about change.