CREATIVE CIRCUMPLEX: A Map of the Creative Process

The Four Quadrants The Four Poles

Entry Ecstasy Agony Industry Inner & Outer, Connection & Separation

THE EIGHT ACTIVITIES:

Wander / Explore

The random walk. Moodling. Searching -- for a problem, a focus, and idea. Sitting in cafes, browsing in the library, the museum. Preparing the ground. Chatting with people, looking over past work. Waiting. Receptivity.

Connect / Envision

Inspiration, falling in love. Finding the problem. Seeing the first connections from which the work will evolve. Sense of certainty, elation, excitement.

Engage / Flow

Being in love with, obsessed by, absorbed by the work. Total concentration and focus. Timelessness and flow. You see the work whole and work inside it.

Struggle / Endure

Blockage, conflict, separation. You want to go one way, and the work wants to go another. Frustration. Hard, painful work that goes nowhere. Self-doubt.

Transform / Shift

Shift of perspective. Solution to the problems that blocked progress. Recreation of the work in a new image. Understanding, acceptance of the work's needs.

Revise / Adapt

Industrious work to manifest the vision. Application of craft, technique, perseverence, discipline. Adaptation of the work and the idea to one another.

Test / Reflect

Trial runs, dress rehearsals, the review process. Preliminary engagement with consumer, audience, critics.

Launch / Release

The performance, the publication, the opening of the art show, the unveiling of the new product, building. The chef's creation is served. Marketing and sales.

The Four Quadrants	The Four Poles
Entry Ecstasy Agony Industry	Inner & Outer, Connection & Separation