What (exactly) is the Creative Process?
In which the Artist follows Alice
down the Rabbit Hole and enters the Labyrinth of herself
Here we go!
Asking the question “What is the Creative Process?” makes it feel like it this THING, this energy or force is SOMETHING OUTSIDE OURSELVES that we may or may not be able to understand or access.
But it feels like a better question to ask is not what IT is, but WHO WE ARE when we are in it.
So I’ll ask it:
Who am I when I am involved in the so-called “Creative Process?”
Thinking about this feels like trying to count the grains of sand in the desert, or the same way a fish in water doesn’t understand what water is - we are so surrounded by it.
And if we leave it, we die.
But it is also kind of comforting - the whole world is a creative process, and we couldn’t be separate from it if we tried.
But what is this thing we call “the” Creative Process?”
Is it a step-by-step thing, and if I follow those steps, what I make will be “creative?”
Or is it a Mr. Miyagi kind of thing - wax on, wax off?
Or is it just a matter of understanding our place in it, like where to stand on a surfboard to ride the wave the longest without flipping off - that even if we fall off, the ocean is still there, and we can get back up and ride that wave again?
Or is is a nature’s growth force kind of thing - that is in us and around us. The poet Dylan Thomas called it “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” That unknown. That mystery. God.
Alice finds a little door, Illustration by John Tenniel, 1865, Alice Adventures in Wonderland
Can we ever understand it?
Or are we relegated to just get on that board and ride it - and is that enough?
I’m just curious about it, that’s all. How it works. How I can tap into it more effectively. How I can be in it and not think about it too much.
(But right now I want to think about it a little bit.)
Scott Jeffrey, an author and consultant in leadership (and other stuff), has some great blog posts describing some of the classic historical mental models for how we think about the creative process:
Carl Jung’s Hero’s Journey / Synchronicity / Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche
Carol S. Pearson’s Awakening The Hero Within
The Enneagram
Freud’s Id/Ego/Superego
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Clare Graves’ “Spiral Dynamics” / Levels of Existence
and many more …
The Pool of Tears, Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1907, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
There are SO many ideas and ways of looking at the creative process - and they are all so interrelated . I think they are just different ways of talking about the same thing: how we create meaning.
One model of the creative process is now a classic (because a very smart sociologist named Graham Wallas wrote a book about it in 1926 called The Art of Thought that became incredibly popular).
Graham’s 4 stages are: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification.
The 4 Stages of Creativity from Graham Wallas’ 1926 Book, The Art of Thought
So how does this resonate with you?
Yes, for me, I feel all those stages exist, and I often feel myself inside of them, but the stages are often switching around, becoming each other minute by minute, more like this model that many people online have embraced (writers, screenwriters, advertising creatives, etc.):
HA!
Wouldn’t we all like it to be more programmatic, easier, like Wallas’ perfectly round wheel or a happy merry-go-round we could just jump onto and tap into the magic? But inevitably, the problem is when we try to a) become aware of it, and b) try to fight it.
Is creativity our Modus Operandi - the way we ALREADY do things - that we can’t change and should just accept? Or is it something “Out There” - some skill we need to learn in order to be successful at?
Like this?:
But more often it is like this?:
Of course, you have noticed that the models are all circular like the Hero’s Journey, with it’s Initiation, Descent and Return.
And when they get fucked up, the perfect circle becomes an x and y axis like a chart we are supposed to understand but don’t?
After looking at all of these, and thinking about the different mental models, the different visual ways I can think about the creative process,
I want to offer another take:
In order to understand YOUR OWN creative process, which is not a thing outside you, but is WHO YOU ARE, might I suggest a few things I’ve done myself recently:
1. Observe yourself
2. Create your own system based on how you already work
Observe Yourself:
Do you get your ideas first, like the charts say - this “Preparation” phase?
OR
Do you just start working, and the ideas reveal themselves as you go?
Do you PREPARE at all?
OR
Do you just dive in and figure it out as you go along?
Do you have an “Incubation” stage? How long is it, usually? An hour, a day, six months, 10 years, or all of the above, depending on the project?
OR
Do you just FINISH something and move on to the next thing, never to return, or maybe return months or years later to tweak that last thing to make it WORK?
Do you tweak and edit a lot?
OR
Do you just do it once, call it good and find perfection in the freshness of the first thought?
I have found that one of the most interesting and helpful ways of looking at the creative process is Kathy Kolbe’s Kolbe A Index. Kolbe suggests that these stages and this process are more about your MODUS OPERANDI - the ways you work naturally when DOING things that doesn’t change much over your lifetime, and it is best to find ways to work with your innate processes than trying to change them.
Kathy Kolbe is a sociologist who worked with her psychologist father in the 1970s as he administered assessments in his practice. But she felt that most personality assessments didn’t measure the way we actually work, so from her work with children, she moved on to working with corporations, and created this fascinating test that doesn’t measure personality traits like emotions, reactions, etc., but addresses the way we actually work when under pressure, or when we are “striving.”
This way of working doesn’t change over time, or from age, etc. It is pretty set.
It is fascinating to know where you are on this scale, and it has given me so much insight into my so-called “creative process.” Here are my results:
The four categories are:
Fact Finder - how you gather and share information - do you need all the details, or do you like to simplify things, saying “what’s the bottom line"?”
Follow Thru - how you arrange and design systems. Do you do things in a very specific way, or are you more spontaneous in your systems?
Quick Start - how you deal with risk & uncertainty. Do you need stability, or do you start things and innovate new ways quickly?
Implementor - how do you deal with the “real world” of objects? Do you need to work with your hands to see how something will come out? Or do you envision things in your mind first and don’t really need to make things in the real world with your hands in order to see how it will come out?
Create Your Own System
How Do You Actually Work Already? You’re Not Wrong
This has really helped me to stop fighting my process, or trying to be someone different than I am.
Take drawing / painting for instance. I like to paint FAST, but I need a little structure. I like the freshness of marks that are not overworked, and I like to finish a painting in one session. It works - for me. So I draw a quick charcoal sketch, then start painting immediately. Then I come back and draw again, over that painting to redefine ideas and shapes, then paint again over that.
I have stopped FIGHTING my creative process.
It is very different from everyone else’s, and it is mine.
What I HAVE found helpful is to take the 18th-century poet/artist WiIliam Blake’s advice:
And so I did. I observed myself, and captured my process in this mental model, an acronym that traces how my creative process actually already works for me when I am working at my best.
I can’t tell you how helpful it has been (well, I’m telling you now).
I chose the word EVOLVE and created a little system for myself:
(I work with artists do this for themselves, too, FYI):
from my favorite app - Etymonline
I love this word: it means to turn, unfold, expand, open out - isn’t that what we are all trying to do?
And this is where I went with it:
Edify (Intuitive and Emotional) - This stage is my very essential morning routine I need in order to manage my energy and take care of myself, meditate, journal, walk on the beach, eat good food, sleep, go to museums, etc.
Variegate (Thinking) - I research, read, find all the different options for a project or just study new ideas, etc.
Originate (Intutive) - I find this is DIFFerent than “Luxuriating in the Zone.” Starting something is harder for me, so I take special care to love, acknowledge and protect this part of the process.
Luxuriate in the Zone (Emotional) - This is when you forget time and space and feel a dopamine rush. I actively protect my time and space for this magic to occur.
Validate (Thinking) - This is a different mindset than Evaluating, I have accountability groups and partners where I show my work and get feedback, and I set boundaries for the types of feedback I want and need and will offer, in order to feel safe in this process with my friends and colleagues.
Evaluate and Evolve (Thinking and Intuitive) - I set aside time to write about my work, to think about what is next, read new things and take notes on past work. I’m in a different mindset than the Edify space, more Thinking.
And then it starts all over again, and is constantly turning at different stages for different projects - a spiral, indeed!
All this does is remind me of how I work best.
And that if I am messed up or missing something, to go back to this model and remind myself of what might be missing in my life - how I can find the center of my wheel, integrate the Thinking, Feeling, Intuitive spokes, all the different archetypes together and stay grounded?
When I work with artists and writers, I try to understand how they already work inside, not wrestle them into a paradigm that is outside of them.
This process of coming to understand your own ways of working, and then using your imagination and creativity to come to better understand your own system, has been SUPER helpful to me and my clients.
If you are interested in learning more about how creativity coaching can into this concept deeper (and much more), please consider exploring my new program Practical Magic Art & Business Atelier.
If you are interested in diving into this process yourself and have questions, let’s chat!
I do a free 30-minute Discovery call to LISTEN to YOU and see what issues you are dealing with right now with your creativity, your art, and your business.
And I’ll end with this amazing quote from Susan Sontag that I hope inspires you like it did me:
“It never occurred to me that I couldn’t live the life I wanted to lead. It never occurred to me that I could be stopped. . . . I had this very simple view: that the reason people who start out with ideals or aspirations don’t do what they dream of doing when they’re young is because they quit. I thought, well, I won’t quit.”
