Evil Eye

by Etaf Rum

As she lowered herself into the seat, she said: “I know most of you are here to fulfill the art elective, but my goal is for you to find something truly valuable in this class, regardless of your major or intended career.” They looked back at her, unmoved. She cleared her throat and went on. “You might be thinking: Why art? What can it possibly do for me? I get it. At one point, the humanities were a sacred endeavor where we were encouraged to seek and cultivate beauty in our every day, but that is no longer the case. Now we live in a world of mass media and technology, a world where everything must have a function, and maybe we’ve lost our appreciation for art, or for doing something for the sake of creativity and pleasure alone.” A few students shifted in their seats. Others looked down at their phones. Yara resisted the urge to get up and snatch their devices away. “Art is a window into the transcendent, into the divine,” she continued. “And we need it in our lives in order to make a connection to something beyond the limited world we live in. My hope is by the end of the semester, you have made one beautiful thing, and by doing so, expanded your relationship with beauty in other parts of your life.”