A cocoon of feminine energy: how I found my ‘third place’ in a local art class

By Nirali Vasisht

Spaces that are neither home nor work are called third places, a term coined by American urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe the cafes, libraries and neighborhood haunts where community happens without an agenda.

Men have historically had their clubs, bars and their weekend sport games to get a space away from home and work. But women feel this loss acutely. Balancing careers, caregiving, and the invisible labor of running a household tends to swallow whatever time exists between work and home, leaving no space to be a person who is not performing a role. That absence, I believe, is one of the quieter engines of burnout in women.

As someone who has worked remotely for years now, I learnt this the hard way.

Last year was a tough year for me. In early March 2025, I came home from a hospital stay and sat with the kind of clarity that only emergency surgery delivers. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to change. Friends suggested I find a faith community that might restore my confidence that life does, in fact, bounce back.

Instead, I searched for neighborhood art classes.

This made no real sense to anyone who knows me even a little. I have never displayed any signs of artistic talent. I cannot draw a straight line or a perfect circle, and I’m that person who would panic at ‘Sip & Paint’ socials because I know I can’t paint.

My relationship with art had always been that of an enthusiast standing safely on the other side of the glass. I buy street art in every country I visit and have paintings all over the house as travel souvenirs. I linger obsessively in art museums, staring in awe at works that speak to my soul, but always as a viewer and occasional buyer, not the creator. That was where it ended.

And yet somehow I decided that my untalented self needed a challenging new hobby in an already difficult season of life.

That search led me to Artbeat Creative Academy in New Delhi, run by Ekta Jain. Meeting Ekta was like meeting grace in human form; a walking version of art herself. She is a veteran abstract artist, yet was efficiently running what felt like an entire art school operation out of a studio in her basement.

I will be honest: at first, I didn’t enjoy the class. I had chosen afternoon sessions to fit around my work schedule, which meant I spent my time sitting beside five-year-olds and teenagers with a hundred times more talent than I will ever have. They produced paintings and sketches that looked museum-grade to my eyes.

And all I produced were wobbly lines with the silent humiliation of someone who didn’t even attend a basic art class as a child.

Then life intervened again – and I took a long hiatus from class. When I decided to return, I made one small change: I asked to be shifted to the adults-only morning batch.

That is when the real magic began.

I thought I was joining an art class for adults. It turns out that adult-only batches at a neighborhood art studio are the ‘third place’ women did not even know they needed. Ekta was running a full-fledged women-only art community in those morning hours.

There was laughter, pots of tea and snacks, music in the background. Women of every age group and every walk of life, each painting or sketching her own thing, side by side. The place held a kind of feminine energy I had not encountered anywhere else in a long time.

Every milestone found its way into Ekta’s studio. Birthdays, anniversaries, small personal victories – she celebrated every student between brushstrokes. There was a month when I ate more birthday cake than I made actual art. This was a community like no other, and it was not even advertising itself as one.

As for my own learning, it thrived once I found my morning rhythm. Every month I walked in with a new idea. I spent weeks on sketches and watercolor pieces that my inner child never got to make.

Painting my grandparents’ home brought a wave of nostalgia I did not expect; painting a future retirement cottage brought a sense of whimsy. I closed my first year of art adventures with a giant four-foot acrylic piece titled “Leap of Faith”.

The title of my last painting was not an accident.

The advice I received last year was to find some version of joy through community. I did not realize I would find so much joy inside a third place that was neither work nor home. It was an art studio filled with tea, warmth and women creating with their hands.

What I had stumbled into was a weekly ritual that was in fact resetting my nervous system, while I thought I was just showing up to paint.

Did I magically turn into an incredible artist after this year? Not even close. Can I draw a perfect circle now? Sadly, it’s still a no. But a year of showing up for classes rewired my brain into believing I have the potential to make art, and I saw the improvements compound over time.

When I first decided to teach my absolute newbie self to paint last year, I imagined taking a vacation from work to run away for a two-week Himalayan painting retreat or five days of art in a Tuscan villa, and then returning to my real life.

Instead, art became a part of my everyday routine, something I never had to escape my reality to learn. It was right here in my neighborhood in New Delhi, in my third place.

Nirali Vasisht is a content marketing consultant with over 12 years of experience leading marketing teams across North America, Europe, and India, helping brands tell their stories. She is author of Content That Compounds (2026). Find her on LinkedIn.

Lead image: Ekta Jain (in blue) during a class with her adult students