🌊 The Threshold of Becoming an Artist — The First Birth of the Self

My grandmother was an artist.
Not the kind who sought exhibitions or applause —
the kind who painted because her soul needed somewhere to go.

She lost my grandfather soon after I was born,
and in her grief, she poured her entire heart into me.

We painted together before I could spell my name.
She showed me how color breathes,
how form whispers,
how silence becomes shape if you listen long enough.

Art was not a hobby.
Art was the first language my soul learned to speak.

By the time I went to art school,
I wasn’t “choosing a path” —
I was returning to myself.

Then came the moment that transforms every artist:

The moment when art stops being something you make…
and becomes something that makes you.

I remember sculpting clay in New York,
my hands learning the topography of the unseen,
my body learning how to translate energy
into shape, gesture, breath.

It was the first time the Self stepped forward.

Not the identity.
Not the girl who left home.
Not the daughter or the student or the “talented one.”

But the Self.

The part of me that knew how to create
from something deeper than skill,
deeper than training,
deeper than intention.

Creation became instinct.

And even now — decades later, across lifetimes of reinvention —
every threshold begins the same way:

With the memory of clay between my hands.
With the truth of what my grandmother taught me.
With the Self rising quietly, unmistakably, undeniably.

Art was my first crossing.

And everything that came after
began there.

With love and presence,
🌊 Gitanjali

Threshold Journeys
Where the inner crossings reveal the architecture of Becoming.

Leadership & Transformation Coach | Human Design Guide
Founder of Vision. Power. Presence.

If this spoke to you, share it with someone standing at their own threshold.
I write about leadership, identity, and Human Design — where transformation becomes art and reinvention becomes remembrance.

Image Credit: Gitanjali Koppikar, My Mother’s Sari, 2025