Bazaar Oddities Shop
This was originally photographed for The Baltimore Sun in 2014 and the written profile piece was done in my Expository Theory class which was a part of my MFA curriculum in Professional Writing/Journalism
This was originally photographed for The Baltimore Sun in 2014 and the written profile piece was done in my Expository Theory class which was a part of my MFA curriculum in Professional Writing/Journalism
by Kaitlin Newman
The evening sun pried its yellow fingers through a ribcage hanging in the window, causing the lined pattern to stretch across the hardwood floor creeping its way up to the antique coffin in the corner. A taxidermy fruit bat on a string swayed softly in the breeze from the AC unit placed in the corner on the ceiling. The sunlight was filtered by old x-rays that were plastered against the window, a natural light box for the body negatives. Cow skulls lined the windowsill and dried out snakes in glass bubbles dangled from above. Baby doll heads dotted the walls and octopus tentacles hung from their baby mouths and their stares were open and vacant. The hardwood floor creaked, the floorboards were knobby and patched together from various trees. Skulls littered the room and the crab apple plants snaked their way through the eyes and mouths of the skulls, keeping them hostage inside the planters. A small blond man sat at the back of the shop. His iPad, the only non-antique in the room, lit up his thick rimmed glasses creating two rectangles of light where eyes should’ve been.
Bazaar, an oddities shop in Hampden, sits on Chestnut Avenue next to an alleyway. Its lime green paint job beckons passerby to stop in for a visit, unaware of what they may find. A tall skinny door and wide bay window are side by side, giving it the appearance of just another house. Plants surround the handful of tiny steps that lead up to the front door. Bazaar is camouflaged against the quirky backdrop that is Hampden, one of the strangest and most whimsical neighborhoods in Baltimore. Among the Hampden shops are crystal stores, vintage clothing boutiques, abstract art galleries with art that doesn’t matter which way you hang it and various bars and eateries. Opening their doors in July of 2013, Bazaar has continued to receive a daily stream of customers during their first year. The Hampdenites know a special place when they see it. In what was formally a plumber’s office now sits a museum of strange, a house of weird, a room of mystery.
Inside, the many shelves and tables are full of taxidermy animals ranging from two-headed ducks to anteaters, glass vials of tentacles and bones, and resin blocks of bugs that used to only exist in one’s imagination. Most of the things in Bazaar are things one would think they would only ever come across in their weird great aunt’s attic one day, long after she had passed away. Digging through old cardboard boxes and shuffling around in an old attic might unearth some surprises and it’s no different here at Bazaar. Greg Hatem, co-owner, tapped away on his iPad. At only twenty-six years old, Hatem’s interest in the morbid and strange antiques well surpassed his age.
A giant buffalo head hanging on the wall watched as Hatem pulled a long object out of a glass cabinet. A pile of film negatives that depicted a pumpkin patch whose pumpkins eerily resembled human faces fanned out on the glass.
“The creepiest thing we have in here, in my opinion anyways, is an old gynecological tool, an abortion hook actually,” Hatem said, holding the 1930’s era hook with both hands, its tapered end pointing to the ceiling from which a dried tentacle hung.
Bazaar is definitely not a place for the easily disgusted or faint of heart. Customers range from the twenty to forty year old age group but Hatem says he’s always surprised by who walks through the door. Old women, young men, children, teenagers, moms, dads, vagabonds - everyone has come through here at some point.
“Someone always seems to know a person who would be into this kind of stuff,” Hatem said.
A woman with long gray hair down past her bottom surveyed the glass case with bone jewelry inside next to the iPad register. The earrings, made of raccoon penis bones, were fragile and delicate. The woman picked them up with her hands and they swayed softly as she dangled them about. A teenage couple was huddled in the far right corner, giggling at the fact that penis bones were actually used to make jewelry. Feigned disgust led into morbid curiosity as one of them peered over the woman’s shoulder at the dangling bones.
One of Bazaar’s most fun attributes is the game of “Find the Mole Hand”. The mole hand is a tiny paw a bit larger than a quarter. Every so often Hatem will hide the mole hand in the shop and the lucky finder will receive a free gift, money off their purchase or something strange Hatem has in mind. With the shop being so full of artifacts and with so many nooks and crannies for a tiny hand to hide, the game is far from easy.
Bazaar, despite its tiny space, houses years of history; it is not large but its collection is. Old posters from carnivals in the 1930’s with the menacing clowns and decrepit fortune tellers beckoning you to have some fun cover the walls. A human skull previously used by doctors in the 1950’s, priced at fifteen-hundred dollars, sits in a glass case grinning at curious viewers with its front tooth missing.
“We just kept collecting all this stuff and didn’t know where to put it all. Our cat started messing with things and then we were like, welp, we need a place for all this so Bazaar came into existence,” Hatem said of he and his co-owner friend Brian Henry, 26. “We go to estate sales and auctions all the time to see what we can find.”
Their recent finds have presented themselves in the form of mid-century prosthetic eyes - only seventy dollars per pair! - all lopsided and veiny and a portable premature infant incubator from 1949 that resembles nothing less than a see-through coffin.
“I don’t think any of this is really creepy, but these are pretty neat,” said Henry as he pulled out the pumpkin patch negatives. The pumpkins in the negatives were all natural and not carved, they were simply a result of nature’s molding. The human faces they resembled were, and still are today, a commodity among those who celebrate Halloween. A natural patch of human faces in the ground - what could be creepier than that?
“If you don’t think any of this is creepy that tells you something right there,” Hatem said, as Brian laid the negatives out, the human faces on the pumpkins staring into nothing.
To make Bazaar more bizarre, one of their most successful ventures was a fantasy taxidermy class they had last year. Participants paid one-hundred and sixty dollars to create “flying pigs” out of guinea pigs and quail. The pigs were stuffed, given glass eyes and quail wings were sewn onto their backs and everyone was able to take their new pet home that day. Since the success of the class, Bazaar plans to put on more curiosity encouraging classes such as mummification classes, a mourning jewelry class and more fantasy taxidermy classes. Currently they are bringing Divya Anantharaman of Divya Does Taxidermy to the shop on October 25th for a Butterfly Entomology Workshop and again on October 26th for a Halloween-themed Monster Mouse class. In reference to the Monster Mouse class, Bazaar says, “This class is a Halloween take on the tradition of anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy. In addition to learning all the basics of small mammal taxidermy, from skinning, fleshing, tail stripping, and other techniques for proper preservation and form building, students will learn tips and tricks to make their very own Franken-mouse, or other fantasy creature.” Both classes are priced at eighty-five dollars and all specimens are ethically sourced.
In addition to the museum of strange, the Bazaar men have recently taken up experimentation with diaphonization. According to an article written by Ansel Oommen on Atlas Obscura, diaphonization was “first developed in 1977 by the scientists G. Dingerkus and L.D. Uhler, the process of diaphonization has also been known as "clearing and staining." The animals are rendered transparent (the "clearing") by bathing in a soup of trypsin, a digestive enzyme that slowly breaks down their flesh. They also soak in several batches of bone, muscle, or cartilage dyes (the "staining"), with alizatin red and alcian blue most commonly used.” Bottom line is that diaphonization makes for a really interesting product that combines art with an appreciation for biology which is was Bazaar is all about.
For now, Bazaar will continue to house the creepy, the scary, the gross and the dead until someone comes along looking for that perfect present.
The evening sun pried its yellow fingers through a ribcage hanging in the window, causing the lined pattern to stretch across the hardwood floor creeping its way up to the antique coffin in the corner. A taxidermy fruit bat on a string swayed softly in the breeze from the AC unit placed in the corner on the ceiling. The sunlight was filtered by old x-rays that were plastered against the window, a natural light box for the body negatives. Cow skulls lined the windowsill and dried out snakes in glass bubbles dangled from above. Baby doll heads dotted the walls and octopus tentacles hung from their baby mouths and their stares were open and vacant. The hardwood floor creaked, the floorboards were knobby and patched together from various trees. Skulls littered the room and the crab apple plants snaked their way through the eyes and mouths of the skulls, keeping them hostage inside the planters. A small blond man sat at the back of the shop. His iPad, the only non-antique in the room, lit up his thick rimmed glasses creating two rectangles of light where eyes should’ve been.
Bazaar, an oddities shop in Hampden, sits on Chestnut Avenue next to an alleyway. Its lime green paint job beckons passerby to stop in for a visit, unaware of what they may find. A tall skinny door and wide bay window are side by side, giving it the appearance of just another house. Plants surround the handful of tiny steps that lead up to the front door. Bazaar is camouflaged against the quirky backdrop that is Hampden, one of the strangest and most whimsical neighborhoods in Baltimore. Among the Hampden shops are crystal stores, vintage clothing boutiques, abstract art galleries with art that doesn’t matter which way you hang it and various bars and eateries. Opening their doors in July of 2013, Bazaar has continued to receive a daily stream of customers during their first year. The Hampdenites know a special place when they see it. In what was formally a plumber’s office now sits a museum of strange, a house of weird, a room of mystery.
Inside, the many shelves and tables are full of taxidermy animals ranging from two-headed ducks to anteaters, glass vials of tentacles and bones, and resin blocks of bugs that used to only exist in one’s imagination. Most of the things in Bazaar are things one would think they would only ever come across in their weird great aunt’s attic one day, long after she had passed away. Digging through old cardboard boxes and shuffling around in an old attic might unearth some surprises and it’s no different here at Bazaar. Greg Hatem, co-owner, tapped away on his iPad. At only twenty-six years old, Hatem’s interest in the morbid and strange antiques well surpassed his age.
A giant buffalo head hanging on the wall watched as Hatem pulled a long object out of a glass cabinet. A pile of film negatives that depicted a pumpkin patch whose pumpkins eerily resembled human faces fanned out on the glass.
“The creepiest thing we have in here, in my opinion anyways, is an old gynecological tool, an abortion hook actually,” Hatem said, holding the 1930’s era hook with both hands, its tapered end pointing to the ceiling from which a dried tentacle hung.
Bazaar is definitely not a place for the easily disgusted or faint of heart. Customers range from the twenty to forty year old age group but Hatem says he’s always surprised by who walks through the door. Old women, young men, children, teenagers, moms, dads, vagabonds - everyone has come through here at some point.
“Someone always seems to know a person who would be into this kind of stuff,” Hatem said.
A woman with long gray hair down past her bottom surveyed the glass case with bone jewelry inside next to the iPad register. The earrings, made of raccoon penis bones, were fragile and delicate. The woman picked them up with her hands and they swayed softly as she dangled them about. A teenage couple was huddled in the far right corner, giggling at the fact that penis bones were actually used to make jewelry. Feigned disgust led into morbid curiosity as one of them peered over the woman’s shoulder at the dangling bones.
One of Bazaar’s most fun attributes is the game of “Find the Mole Hand”. The mole hand is a tiny paw a bit larger than a quarter. Every so often Hatem will hide the mole hand in the shop and the lucky finder will receive a free gift, money off their purchase or something strange Hatem has in mind. With the shop being so full of artifacts and with so many nooks and crannies for a tiny hand to hide, the game is far from easy.
Bazaar, despite its tiny space, houses years of history; it is not large but its collection is. Old posters from carnivals in the 1930’s with the menacing clowns and decrepit fortune tellers beckoning you to have some fun cover the walls. A human skull previously used by doctors in the 1950’s, priced at fifteen-hundred dollars, sits in a glass case grinning at curious viewers with its front tooth missing.
“We just kept collecting all this stuff and didn’t know where to put it all. Our cat started messing with things and then we were like, welp, we need a place for all this so Bazaar came into existence,” Hatem said of he and his co-owner friend Brian Henry, 26. “We go to estate sales and auctions all the time to see what we can find.”
Their recent finds have presented themselves in the form of mid-century prosthetic eyes - only seventy dollars per pair! - all lopsided and veiny and a portable premature infant incubator from 1949 that resembles nothing less than a see-through coffin.
“I don’t think any of this is really creepy, but these are pretty neat,” said Henry as he pulled out the pumpkin patch negatives. The pumpkins in the negatives were all natural and not carved, they were simply a result of nature’s molding. The human faces they resembled were, and still are today, a commodity among those who celebrate Halloween. A natural patch of human faces in the ground - what could be creepier than that?
“If you don’t think any of this is creepy that tells you something right there,” Hatem said, as Brian laid the negatives out, the human faces on the pumpkins staring into nothing.
To make Bazaar more bizarre, one of their most successful ventures was a fantasy taxidermy class they had last year. Participants paid one-hundred and sixty dollars to create “flying pigs” out of guinea pigs and quail. The pigs were stuffed, given glass eyes and quail wings were sewn onto their backs and everyone was able to take their new pet home that day. Since the success of the class, Bazaar plans to put on more curiosity encouraging classes such as mummification classes, a mourning jewelry class and more fantasy taxidermy classes. Currently they are bringing Divya Anantharaman of Divya Does Taxidermy to the shop on October 25th for a Butterfly Entomology Workshop and again on October 26th for a Halloween-themed Monster Mouse class. In reference to the Monster Mouse class, Bazaar says, “This class is a Halloween take on the tradition of anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy. In addition to learning all the basics of small mammal taxidermy, from skinning, fleshing, tail stripping, and other techniques for proper preservation and form building, students will learn tips and tricks to make their very own Franken-mouse, or other fantasy creature.” Both classes are priced at eighty-five dollars and all specimens are ethically sourced.
In addition to the museum of strange, the Bazaar men have recently taken up experimentation with diaphonization. According to an article written by Ansel Oommen on Atlas Obscura, diaphonization was “first developed in 1977 by the scientists G. Dingerkus and L.D. Uhler, the process of diaphonization has also been known as "clearing and staining." The animals are rendered transparent (the "clearing") by bathing in a soup of trypsin, a digestive enzyme that slowly breaks down their flesh. They also soak in several batches of bone, muscle, or cartilage dyes (the "staining"), with alizatin red and alcian blue most commonly used.” Bottom line is that diaphonization makes for a really interesting product that combines art with an appreciation for biology which is was Bazaar is all about.
For now, Bazaar will continue to house the creepy, the scary, the gross and the dead until someone comes along looking for that perfect present.
