At oddity shops, customers may pick up anything from a bleached skull to a preserved puppy suspended in fluid to a painting featuring iridescent, pinned beetles.
The growing fascination with the unusual has sparked a larger conversation about sustainability in a trade where life and death sit side by side.
As oddity shops and markets grow in number and popularity, people tend to wonder where the items they use come from.
The Gainesville Oddities Market, just one of around 10 recurring open-air markets across the state, features about 80 vendors showcasing an eclectic array of wares and draws hundreds of visitors several times a year.
Melissa Matthews, owner of The Charmer's Daughter, sold jewelry using things like pelts, snake vertebrates, rodent jawbones and reptile feet at the Gainesville market on Sept. 7. She said growing up in the countryside surrounded by hunters piqued her lasting interest in oddities.
“I'd always say, ‘Can I have the antlers? Can I have this? Can I have that?’ And then we just kind of turned it into a little project,” she said.
Fascination with the strange and often macabre isn’t new.
According to the Smithsonian, Victorian “cabinets of curiosity” once served as early versions of museums featuring different kinds of natural objects, but the renewed interest comes with modern scrutiny.
Conservation organizations like the World Wildlife Fund warn that objects sold as decorative curios can sometimes be part of larger illegal trade networks, where, according to their website, “an unregulated online market allows criminals to sell illegally obtained wildlife products across the globe,” complicating efforts to buy or sell legally and ethically.
For vendors who sell natural specimens, sourcing products responsibly can mean collecting creatures that died naturally in captivity, salvaging roadkill or obtaining them through partnerships with veterinarians and museums.
Matthews said she sources her bones mostly from a business in Jacksonville, which supplies legally obtained animal remains for classrooms, artists and bone-enthusiasts. She also sources from local taxidermists. Her creations are a way for her to repurpose things that would otherwise go to waste, she said.
“You can give it a new life and a new purpose,” Matthews said. “You don't have to just bury it. Someone can wear it.”
Stella Luna of Moon Craft Works, an oddity shop in Gainesville, said that purchasing bones from taxidermists is a way to legally obtain her materials.
“Taxidermists work with certified and licensed hunters, meaning that the bones are legally procured,” she said.
Luna said buyers should never be afraid to ask about where an item was sourced from or how an animal died before purchasing parts of its remains. Informed buying is just one way to contribute to ethical and sustainable practices, she said.
Hayley Schroeder, owner of Back to the Garden Minerals & Oddities, said being informed about her specimen and informing others on her process is an integral part of her business.
“I source things from different pet shops and different pet breeders all around Florida,” she said. “I'm always getting different types of animals, and I usually learn the anatomy of the animal along with preserving them.”
Schroeder works with dead snakes, often preserving them in globes in curled up positions. She keeps a few as pets, as well. Working with snakes has given her the opportunity to connect her preservation work with advocacy for the animals themselves.
“A lot of people are scared of them, and they're very misunderstood animals,” she said. “I've heard a lot of people say ‘that snake is better dead in a jar.’ So I try to educate people and also let them know how ethical and sustainable oddities really can be.”
Most of Schroeder’s specimens arrive to her having died without human intervention, though she sometimes works with roadkill.
“I think a lot of people assume that you just go out and you just hunt the majority of these animals, when that's not the case,” she said.
Some see oddities work as a way to repurpose remains that might otherwise go to waste. Others, like Katarina Kovach, think about sustainability from the consumer’s side
Kovach, who frequents the markets and makes her own art using dead bugs, also reflected on the importance of acknowledging the life that eventually became the products she consumes.
She said that while oddities are becoming more popular and accepted, this raises issues of overharvesting. She added that she avoided buying monarchs as their numbers declined in the wild.
“I won't mess with monarchs,” she said. “I'm not saying people that have them out today aren't getting them from sustainable sources, but I would hope that they're making the effort to sustain them so that they're still alive years from now.”
She said she wants others to understand the importance and value the creatures’ lives hold when they look at art made from their bodies.
“I just hope that it would also inspire people, not just for the beauty of these things, but the protection of them,” she said.