What Is an Artist Practice Notebook? A Year of Weekly Creative Practice Opportunities Editor - August 2, 2026 Today I’m excited to introduce a new year-long series on Contemporary Performance: Your Artist Practice Notebook. Every Sunday, a new essay and creative practice will drop for members. These essays and prompts are designed to strengthen and sustain an artistic practice over the course of a year. Each week’s practice explores one aspect of making through observation, experimentation, reflection, and return. You’ll find each new installment in our weekly newsletter and in the Your Artist Practice Notebook collection on Patreon, making it easy to return to previous weeks whenever you like. Whether you’ve been part of the Contemporary Performance community for years or you’ve just joined us, I’m glad you’re here. I hope this series becomes part of your weekly rhythm and a place you return to throughout your artistic life. Artists spend a great deal of time making work, applying for opportunities, producing projects, collaborating with others, and responding to deadlines. Those activities are important, but they can also pull us away from the quieter work that sustains an artistic life. Practice is where we return to our questions. It’s where we notice patterns, develop habits, and create the conditions for ideas to emerge. This series grew out of my teaching and my own studio practice. Over the years I’ve watched artists struggle with the same question: How do I keep making work between projects? Not every week leads to a performance, an exhibition, or a publication, but every week offers an opportunity to deepen your relationship with your practice. That’s what this series is for. Over the next year, you’ll receive a new post every Sunday. Each one builds on a corresponding week and offers a few minutes to pause before beginning the week’s exercise. These essays are conversations with fellow artists. Read one with a cup of coffee, on the train, or whenever you find a quiet moment, then return to your notebook and spend time with the practice itself. Each essay takes a few minutes to read. The creative practice unfolds over the course of the week. Some exercises take ten minutes. Others stay with you for several days as you observe, reflect, and return to them. Work at your own pace. Return when you can. Over time, the small moments of attention accumulate into a deeper relationship with your practice. This week we begin with Week 1: Locate & Listen–> What is an Artist Practice Notebook and How Do I Use It? There is no right way to use an artist’s notebook. You don’t need a dedicated studio. You don’t need expensive materials. You don’t even need to begin at the beginning, although I encourage you to do so the first time through. You will need a notebook or a sketchbook, a spiral notebook, a composition book, or a digital notes app if that’s how you naturally work. Date every entry, even if it’s only a few sentences. Over time, you’ll begin to see patterns that would otherwise disappear. Try to complete one practice each week before moving to the next. If life interrupts, don’t worry. Return when you can (aka backfill your notebook). Move through the notebook at your own pace. It is a framework you can return to throughout your artistic life. Some weeks you’ll write. Others you’ll draw, walk, observe, read, collaborate, or simply pay closer attention. Some practices will resonate immediately. Others may not make sense until months later. That is part of the process. Trust your own pace. Don’t worry about making beautiful notebook pages. Let them become working documents. Cross things out. Add photographs, ticket stubs, sketches, rehearsal notes, quotes, diagrams, or questions. Your notebook is not a finished artwork. It is an archive of your thinking. Most importantly, keep returning. A creative practice is built through repetition, attention, and curiosity rather than dramatic moments of inspiration. If you’d like more background on how this project developed, I also recommend reading the artist development essay, Setting up a Creative Practice Notebook. The Year Ahead Each month focuses on a different dimension of artistic practice. Together they create a year-long framework that can be revisited again and again as your work evolves. - Define Your “Studio” - Material Investigation - Sensory Attention - Read and Annotate - Collaborate Small - Archive and Remember - Field Immersion - Physical Practice - Write the Practice - Glitch and Break - Share and Connect - Reflect and Reset Start Here Week 1: Locate & Listen–>