Neighbor Intrigued by Woman's Mysterious Artwork on Doorway: 'What Is It?'
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A post about intricate floral chalk drawings outside a neighbor's doorway has gone viral on social media.
Shared by Reddit user u/capnricky, the post has garnered over 15,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments since it was uploaded on July 9 in the r/whatisit subreddit.
The post, titled "My neighbor has been doing this at her doorway once a week for the past few weeks. It's beautiful, but what is it?", includes photographs of distinct symmetrical patterns drawn on the ground outside a doorway.
The chalk or powder drawings change weekly, each featuring elaborate designs resembling flowers and other natural motifs. The caption says that the Reddit user sees a new design each morning and has made a habit of photographing them, planning to compile the images into a photo album for their neighbor.
"I don't want to culturally offend," the user wrote, adding: "It's really pretty, and I do my best to keep my 5 yo [year old] twins away from it."
Other Reddit users in the comments quickly identified the mysterious artwork as kolam, a traditional South Indian art form that dates back generations.
A pinned comment by user u/Cheekbish read: "It's actually called a Kolam—an art form from the southern part of India and drawn on the ground using rice powder or chalk. It's said to bring good luck, positivity, and prosperity."
Kolam is a folk tradition deeply rooted in Tamil Nadu. An October 2023 article in IRE Journals describes it as an intergenerational practice based on geometric symmetry and creative interpretation.
The artist draws with chalk or charcoal, beginning with a grid of dots known as pulli, which are then connected by looping or straight lines to form complex, symmetrical patterns. The article says, "The artist uses his imagination to create an image that represents what he wants to draw," often coloring the design using natural pigments or watercolor paints.
Kolam is more than decorative—it holds daily and spiritual significance in Tamil culture. The Indian nonprofit Sahapedia outlines the practice as a "daily women's ritualistic art form created by Tamil Hindu women throughout Tamil Nadu in southeastern India." The designs are typically drawn at dawn and sometimes again at dusk, especially during Brahma muhurta, a period believed to be auspicious for spiritual activity.
"Each day before dawn … millions of women in the towns, villages, and cities of Tamil Nadu (and Pondicherry) draw kōlam on the thresholds and floors of houses, temples, and businesses," Sahapedia notes. "In Tamil culture, the threshold is of great significance as the meeting point of the internal and the external."
These "threshold designs," Sahapedia adds, symbolize beauty, divinity, and good fortune. Traditionally, they are drawn with finely ground rice powder, though chalk or stone powder is often mixed in for durability and cost-saving. The technique requires precise control and rhythm, as the powder is carefully released between the fingers in a continuous flow. The result is a transient artwork, often swept away and redrawn daily, in keeping with its ritual nature.
'Amazing'
Reddit users applauded the unique artwork and the original poster's respectful curiosity.
U/estcaroauteminfirma posted, "Amazing is what it is," and u/Official_Business_ wrote: "They're beautiful."
U/Infiniscroll commented: "I love this form of art. It shows the shape of the mind in some intriguing ways. They are also very mathematical!"
U/Nice_Marketing_9252 noted: "So if OP [the original poster] takes pictures every day and makes album like he/she says, then Kolam will actually work because it will already bring positivity. Maybe others will follow."
U/PresidentMeeseeks added: "It's so thoughtful of you to want to give her an album of her Kolam patterns! I'm a South Indian living abroad and it's gestures like these that encourage us to integrate with our new communities. Also, look out for her designs on festival dates. Those would be even more elaborate and pretty."
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
Stock image: A woman creates a kolam drawing on the ground.
Stock image: A woman creates a kolam drawing on the ground.
Getty
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The size of Minnesota's population of the majestic, white-head-and-tail birds that are exclusive to North America is second only to that of Alaska. The legislation that made the eagle official came from members of Minnesota's Congressional delegation. The federal act recognizes the eagles' centrality in most Indigenous peoples' 'spiritual lives and sacred belief systems,' and a replica of it is on display at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, 40 miles (65 kilometers) downriver from the Prairie Island community, which partners with the center in eagle care. 'If you grew up in the United States, eagles were a part of your everyday life,' said Tiffany Ploehn, who as the center's avian care director supervises its four resident bald eagles. 'Everyone has some sort of connection.' 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But it's just a special occurrence for us to see,' Buck said. 'We love seeing it, and normally when we do, we just offer tobacco to show our respects.' Some Native Americans honor the eagle by taking it as their ceremonial name. Derek Walking Eagle, whose Lakota name is 'Eagle Thunder,' celebrated the graduates wearing a woven medallion representing the bird. To him, eagles are like relatives that connect him to his future and afterlife. 'Being able to carry on to the spirit world … that's who guides you. It's the eagle,' Walking Eagle said. That deep respect attaches to the feathers, too. 'It's the highest respect you can bestow on a person, from your family and from your people, from your tribe,' Thunder Hawk said. 'We teach the person receiving the feather that they have to honor and respect the eagle. And we tell them why.' In many Native cultures, killing an eagle is 'blasphemous,' he said. It is also a federal offense. Historically, Sioux warriors would lure an eagle with rabbit or other food, pluck a few feathers and release it, said Thunder Hawk, who grew up in South Dakota. Today, there's a nationwide program that legally distributes eagle feathers and parts exclusively to tribal members, though it's very backlogged. U.S. wildlife and tribal officials worry that killings and illegal trafficking of eagles for their feathers is on the rise, especially in the West. In Minnesota, eagles are most often harmed by road accidents and eating poison – results of shrinking wildlife habitat that brings them in closer contact with humans, said Lori Arent, interim director of the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center. The center treats about 200 injured bald eagles each year. Of those they can save, most are eventually released back into the wild. Permanently disabled birds that lose an eye or whose wings are too badly fractured to fly are cared for there or at other educational institutions like the Wabasha eagle center. The official designation could help more Americans understand how their behaviors inadvertently harm eagles, Arent said. Littering by a highway, for instance, attracts rodents that lure eagles, which then can be struck by vehicles. Fishing or hunting with tackles and ammunition containing lead exposes the eagles eating those fish or deer remains to fatal metal poisoning. Humans have lost the ability to coexist in harmony with the natural world, Thunder Hawk said, voicing a concern shared by Indigenous people from the Chilean Andes to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hopes more people might now approach the eagle with the same reverence he was taught. It's what leads him to offer sage or dried red willow bark every time he spots one as a 'thank you for allowing me to see you and for you to hear my prayers and my thoughts.' Erickson, the new graduate, shares that optimism. 'I feel like that kind of shows that we're strong and united as a country,' she said by the Mississippi, her new feather nestled in her hair.
