My daughter, Nika, and her husband and baby were moving today. All the many pieces of furniture and clothing and books, etc. were being shifted from one house to another. Moving belongings – one by one.

It’s amazing how many items we realize we have when the grouping that happens in a home is taken apart. All these separate objects. All these smaller pieces that come together. Come together to create that warm space known as home.

Home, as in place. And then, there is home as in music, or dance. Or home, as in art.

Last night, I was reading Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women. In this particular chapter, she was talking about the community that formed in the 1950’s around the Cedar in NYC: the artists who would gather night after night, and, on set occasions, hear people speak. Many artists spoke. But also, among the participants was John Cage, the musician, and Merce Cunningham, the dancer.

Cage was no longer looking at music as linear. Likewise, Cunningham was dissecting dance: sensing into the distinct movements, not tied to the traditional or expected sequences. And all of this was happening when art was breaking away as “modern art” – focussing on how color interacted with itself, versus how it formed a recognizable picture.

I got it. Each art form was unpacking. Each art form was examining its ingredients.

Each was looking for its next home.