Jessica Duverneay is satisfying morbid curiosities with lurid loot.
To be her own boss, Duverneay started the Cellar Door Gifts and Gallery a month ago. Some of her creepy collections include fetus candles and insect-infused jewelry. She said small business inspires creativity and provides space for local artists who are professional and dark, but not vile.
“I was sick of working with stupid people, and I wanted to do something cool that was community-building, because I thought artists were going to come here and start meeting each other and feel like their work had a home,” she said.
The shop’s oddities challenge societal attitudes toward innocent figures like babies and animals, Duverneay said. She said she has a penchant for the macabre — things that acknowledge life’s unsavory side.
“We can choose to be like, ‘It’s part of life,’ and if there’s something we have to confront that’s dark and scary,” she said. “If we can see the lighter side of it or the universality of it, then it becomes a little more acceptable and easier to handle.”
Artist Chip Simons’ work is featured at the shop. One of his pieces depicts two human-sized rabbits carrying a large carrot. He said the animals mirror other shop pieces.
“Somehow it makes it more surreal and fantastic,” he said. “Even though they’re kind of innocent and playful, they’re very kind of macabre. It’s post-apocalyptic, yet it’s very much like a family photo album.”
She has a basket of local zines such as The Nightly Noodle Monthly and the pre-Chicago-based-but-now-local Proof I Exist.
The shop also carries pieces from Jennifer Angel. Angel met Duverneay at a crafts fair and was
invited to bring her work to the shop. She said she creates “happy bones” figures and shadow boxes that place skeletons in everyday situations.
“It’s basically Day of the Dead, but in a cheerier attitude,” she said. “I think it was because it was different and humorous at the same time, so I took something that could be potentially really dark and made it funny.”
Duverneay said the shop’s do-it-yourself starter projects and literature, like voodoo dolls and mix tapes, encourage those who aren’t typically creative.
“If you are artistic, you see this stuff and you’re like, ‘Oh, I could maybe make that. I’m going to try and make that,’” she said. “Or if you aren’t artistic, but you really can appreciate the darker, funnier, weirder things you can’t find anywhere else.”
Duverneay said she selects handmade merchandise and purposely tries not to appeal to the masses.
“You pay a premium for things that are handmade with love,” she said. “It’s not mass-produced in China by a 12-year-old who’s not making a livable wage. Those are the kind of products that I’m trying to avoid. I don’t want to be part of mass consumer culture. I don’t want to be part of disposable people problems.”
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