Matthew Gray’s office is located in an unassuming section of a strip mall in Ocala. But inside, a colorful cast of characters sit on plush sofas surrounded by skulls, bugs and taxidermied animals.
Gray has been running monthly oddities markets for two years. He started the first one in Ocala, then expanded to Inverness and Lake County. Sunday will be the first time the market comes to Gainesville.
Gray said visitors can expect a wide range of merchandise, everything from taxidermy, bones and bugs to vintage fashion and antiques.
“It gives you an opportunity to purchase things year-round that you could only typically purchase at Halloween time or things like that,” Gray said.
The market gives vendors with unique skill sets a place to showcase their wares, when Gray said they might not be able to elsewhere.
“A lot of these people are people that are not accepted in normal first Friday art walks or aren’t accepted in normal farmers markets and stuff,” he said. “Their stuff is just weird or different or unique and beautiful in its own way. But the regular people look at like, ‘I don't want that in my market.’”
Despite the strange and sometimes creepy nature of the art, he said the market is designed to be family-friendly.
“I bring my own three and 10-year-old daughters to it. People bring their families out. We have clients that are in their 60’s and 70’s that come out that just love this kind of stuff,” Gray said.
Allison Doty is a taxidermist and an owner-operator of the market. She specializes in “rogue taxidermy,” or taxidermy that doesn’t stick to the bounds of realism. For example, Doty created a Halloween coyote that hangs in Gray’s office.
Doty emphasized that she only uses animals who have died of natural causes in her art.
“I get them from zoos. I get them from roadkill I pick up a lot. Nature centers, all kinds of places that have animals, rescues, you know, because everything dies,” she said.
She sees her art as a way of extending the life of an animal.
“These animals are getting a second chance at life to be loved and enjoyed as home decor,” Doty said.
Maria Melton owns Nocturna Flora, and she’s been a vendor at Gray’s markets since the beginning. She makes art out of butterflies and moths she raises herself.
“I've been obsessed with them my entire life,” Melton said. “I was confined to a wheelchair growing up, so studying bugs was something I could do sitting down, and I got really, really, really fascinated by them.”
She wants people to appreciate nature through her art, which showcases the specimens in shadow boxes and thrifted items.
“The truth is stranger than fiction, I guess. You know, nature's a pretty amazing thing, and it has the capacity to blow my mind continuously,” she said.
Melton said the response to her art varies depending on the age of the customer.
“Kids walk up and are kind of shocked at some specimens they've never seen before,” she said. “I've even had, you know, people that are a bit older want to sit there and talk about the fact that they didn't know certain moths existed, or ones to that size, or that color. They just kind of are blown away by it.”
Todd and Jennifer Drever run Safari Todd Unlimited, a production company that supplies animals for attractions and films and offers educational outreach programs. In addition to live animal production, the Drevers also specialize in museum-like preservation of animal remains.
Todd Drever, like Doty, feels their work gives a dead animal a new meaning.
“The end for something living doesn't mean, necessarily, the end for it permanently,” he said. “Some of these items that we make allow us to appreciate something long after the animal or the item is no longer basically considered useful by society.”
Many of the vendors feel like the oddities market is like a big family, including Todd Drever.
“You don't see the competitive rivalry that you'll see in other types of marketplaces. These people will help each other get to the next level. And I think that's impressive,” he said.
The Drevers, like other vendors, stress the importance of ethical sourcing in the oddities industry.
“Making sure that the dead stuff we're getting died naturally and wasn't killed just for the sake of putting it in a shadow box or in a jar,” Jennifer Drever said.
She said reputable vendors will know exactly where and how they acquired their pieces, so she encourages those buying oddities to ask questions about the items they’re considering purchasing.
“So you approach somebody and they don't know the answers, they're kind of hesitant and giving you a runaround, that's usually a pretty good red flag,” she said.
She also says markets are a place to explore and discover new and exciting things.
“Outside of your comfort zone is where the magic happens,” Jennifer Drever said.
The market will run from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday at Bo Diddley Plaza in Gainesville.