Birth of an Idea

In 1926, Graham Wallas gave the four stages of the creative process as: 1. Preparation: Building a rich pool of raw material, investigating it in all directions. 2. Digestion: Seeking a relationship between the material. 3. Incubation: Unconscious processing, using no direct effort on the process. 4. Illumination: The “A-Ha” moment, a flash of insight that the conscious cannot will. Not long after, in 1939, James Webb Young expanded on those stages by adding a fifth, which after the initial stage of preparation, is to Digest the material and seek the relationship. 5.Verification: Idea meets reality, a conscious and deliberate effort to test validity. 'Birth of an Idea' piece is capturing the 4th stage of Illumination, the 'A-HA' moment.