Elizabeth Nguyen
Contributing Writer
While the pandemic saw most of us binging Netflix shows, Professor Melissa Carr sat restless. Her natural inclination to “go, go, go” had been summarily stopped, trapping her home with nothing to occupy her mind and hands.
She took up meditation, but it wasn’t enough to calm her restless energy. “I was teaching on Zoom, I couldn’t travel. I had always taken mini trips, even during the school year. I needed to keep myself busy.” The shut-in lifestyle was taking a toll on her.
Then, a friend reached out. There’s an outdoor event, she said, would she be interested in selling some handmade items? Carr said yes, opting to make hand-poured candles, a longtime hobby of hers.
They completely sold out.
This success sparked the beginning of “Evil Eye Sanctuary,” Carr’s candle-making business with a spiritual twist and a nod to her Colombian roots. Focused on promoting “positive, peace and protection,” the shop now also sells healing crystals, sage and milagros — Latin American folk charms used for healing and religious purposes.
Evil Eye Sanctuary brings fashion and business together. A glance at the shop’s website and social media profiles shows a keen eye for aesthetic cohesion, evidence of Carr’s years of business experience and instinct for style.
Carr’s love of fashion began early. Growing up, she loved visiting her Colombian grandmother, a fashion designer. “I was always in awe of her dresses. Beyond that, I was always that little girl who would try on her mom’s stilettos as she was getting ready for work.”
Her affinity for style shows today in her custom-built home, the center of her online shop’s operations. The muted colors and simple furniture pieces give the space a calm and sleek look, as if every item was placed with consideration.
This serene setting contrasts with the frenzy of activity it contains. Her dining room is covered in items from her shop; crystal necklaces and milagros still sitting in the box they arrived in.
Carr juggles her life. One minute, she is getting her son settled down after school, the next she is talking business with her social media manager.
Carr manages this chaos seemingly with ease. It is in these moments that she shows her penchant for business.
Getting to the business side of the fashion world was a result of nudging from high school advisers, but it turned out to be the right choice. “Funny enough, my favorite classes were actually my business classes.”
Carr led a successful career in the industry afterwards, working as a senior buyer at a South Loop company for nearly nine years. While she was there, she decided to start teaching, something that she had always done informally. She began teaching part time at Dominican.
Then the recession hit.
Her company was being bought out. “They told us we had 40 minutes to get our stuff and leave, but they asked four of us to stay and interview with the new company. I was one of them.”
Instead, Carr took another opportunity – to teach full time at Dominican.
It ended up being the right choice for her. “As much as I love the [fashion] industry,” she said, “nothing makes me happier than to see my students succeed.”
Carr gushes about her prior students’ successes, but it’s clear that her call to teach continues to drive her.
Carr’s students continue to look to her for guidance. Fashion Club President Irving Castaneda sees her as a personal role model. “Being of a Latin background herself, Professor Carr inspires and reminds me that anything is possible when you present yourself with strong confidence and professionalism.”
In her stall in a West Loop market event, again, she is doing what comes most natural to her, teaching, by having a fashion-interested high school student shadow her.
Among the customers that day was Anne Gardner, an administrative assistant at Dominican whose daughter is a former student of Carr’s. “I remember my daughter telling me how Dr. Carr was always creatively focused on how to navigate the world as an entrepreneur. Evil Eye Sanctuary is a wonderful representation of the philosophies she has shared with her students as a professor.”
Carr’s story is more than one of a gifted woman being given opportunities at the right time; it is about a woman who knows what she can do, has the confidence to do it and feels duty-bound to share her knowledge with others. She hears the numerous callings in her life — to fashion, business, teaching — and embraces them. Fundamentally, Carr’s work involves contributing to the greater world, whether that is through the knowledge she passes on to her students or the model of assertiveness that she embodies.
“We can’t do it by ourselves. It can’t be ‘me, me, me’ all the time. We need to come together as a group to try to make this world better.”
