Daily Doses of Art for January 2026
Below is a running list of some of the Daily Doses of Art for January 2026.
This is a lovely daily practice (when I do it!) that helps me review (or anticiapte) my day and choose one art encounter to share. I usually have multiple art encounters each day, but it’s simpler to only share one.
January 1: Finished Emily in Paris.
January 2: While on a day trip road trip to Atlanta to see my Grandma, we listened to Abbey Road by The Beatles.
January 3: More Handel’s Messiah.
January 4: More Mrs. Dalloway.
January 5: Last day for Handel’s Messiah, so more Messiah!
January 6: I listened to T. S. Eliot read “Journey of the Magi.”
January 7: I read the ARC for a new picture book, Louisa Learns to Write. Lovely. Highly recommend!
January 8: The Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment offering for today (and for five or so days total) were created by Catherine Ricketts and feature art by Catherine Repko. I’m really enjoying time with Repko’s art.
January 9: Tim and I went to see Father Mother Sister Brother last night and we really enjoyed it.
January 10: Brady and I ran an errand with a two-hour road trip. He was in control on the music, and I thoroughly enjoyed some tracks by the DJ SAN PACHO.
January 11: Today, I read several poems from the ARC for Maggie Smith’s forthcoming book of poetry, A Suit or a Suitcase, and these poems are so so good. Of course. Here’s a post on Threads with a bit about one poem I keep returning to.
January 12: More Mrs. Dalloway.
January 13: Listened to a lot of classical music from a random playlist today to distract me from a very disturbing situation from earlier this morning.
January 14: Listened to the Slowdown episode and poem from today’s SDW Daily Nourishment.
January 15: Tim and I went to see Hamnet and it was so good, as many of you already know.
January 16: Wrote a bunch about Alvin Ailey’s Revelations today, so I watched it again online. So good.
January 17: I had two readings and conversations in Montgomery today for my five-year-old book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, and I listened to my The Great Belonging playlist on Spotify while driving from Birmingham to the first gathering.
January 18: Tim and I went to see Song Sung Blue and we really enjoyed it. I need more Neil Diamond music in my life.
January 19: This morning was rough emotionally, but my past self gave my current self good words from Margaret Walker and good art from Elizabeth Catlett and other good stuff too. Thank God for art and words and music. And, even though I looked at everything on the 15th, I looked at it all again today from a different place, a different mood, a different perspective. So the experience was completely different. That’s how it works.
January 20: I’ve been listening to music by Odetta over the past couple of days. This morning I listened some more during my very early, very cold sunrise stroll.
January 21: Read “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay via today’s Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment.
January 22: Thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of George Rodrigue’s art at an exhibition in Decatur, Alabama.
January 23: Read “When You Return” by Ellen Bass (one of my most favorite poems) several times.
January 24: Read a bunch of poems to try to make me feel better.
January 25: Listened to the new album by Lucinda Williams.
January 26: Read some of Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary
January 27: Looked at some visual art I’m writing about. More Joan Mitchell.
January 28: Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis.”
January 29: Thanks to today’s SDW Daily Nourishment, I read a fantastic short excerpt from Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women
January 30: I went to the opening of the new exhibition at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Monet to Matisse: French Moderns, 1850-1950, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
January 31: Currently listening to a very fun DJ set by RAMMIE with plenty of Beyoncé and some amazing transitions.