Our head witch in charge, Cheri, is a fiery Aries who is not afraid of her swords! She co-owns Sideshow Gallery with her best friend Anne and has been a Western Ave Witch since 2002. Cheri also co-owns Revolution Tattoo next door with her husband Omar. She is inspired by her travels, metal music, friends and her practice. As a buyer for the shop, Cheri loves to find antiques and unusual merchandise so her clients have a unique experience every time they stop by. She is great at bringing people together for events and art shows. It’s very important to her to contribute to the art scene by giving artists and makers a beautiful, cared for space with good intention to showcase their work.

Cheri's witchcraft is based on spell crafting, self care, setting intentions and soul searching. She uses herbs, crystals, candles and talismans to empower her practice. She realizes her ancestors, the moon, the earth and the zodiac influence her. She is a shrine builder and altar maker who likes to express herself visually with her rituals. Her own artwork is assemblages of found objects and adornments. They usually take shape in shadow boxes or displays in the shop. Cheri finds beauty in death and inspiration in the Ossuaries, Voodoo, Memento Mori and Day of the Dead. When you visit the shop, Cheri can help you dress a candle, make a witch bottle or you can pick up one of her handmade altar talismans. As a collector she likes to hunt for trivets, bottles, copper and anything with a mushroom on it. Her therapy is banging her head at metal shows and long road trips in her 70s van.

Anne is the co-owner of Sideshow and an in house tarot reader (AKA The Demon Cleaner). She loves to rant about politics, revolution, music, art and anything else worth getting worked up about. She loves to travel, learn about new people and places, cook and explore. 

Anne is a Taurus- and true to her earth sign, loves gardening, growing and nature. A born collector, Anne is obsessed with finding unusual treasures for the store and giving them a second life. Sideshow is truly a labor of love for her: curating the gallery, merchandising the store and putting on events- all make her very happy. Anne feels the best part about this place is the feeling of being apart of this great city and the artists/artisans that are a part of this community. She is is fascinated by the occult and the many diverse divination practices.

Want to learn how to read tarot, pick out a deck or do a reading? Anne would love to help you!  She also teaches tarot classes.

Natalie started her work as Sideshow’s Sorceress of Social Media in 2017. Since then it has been Natalie who has brought you all our daily magical content. It is the artistic and mystic realms of the shop that inspire Natalie to create new photos or videos, and even cast some of her own in-house magic. In her personal practice, Natalie is attracted to anything that burns or has a dark side. Exploring shadow work and lunar synchronicities, Natalie believes we don’t have to be afraid of the darkness if we seek to understand it. Candle magic, incense or smoke rituals and cleansings, and varied divination practices are where Natalie likes to extend her energy.

True to Sideshow’s gallery roots, Natalie’s jewelry line, White Wolf Syndicate, is also on display at the shop. She is a practiced silversmith and blossoming lapidarist whose pieces are anything but ordinary. Always wanting to expand the ways in which she interacts with the shop, this summer Natalie and Anne have started a Sideshow Book Club to discuss everything from feminist politics to how to improve our ecological impact and make magic along the way.

Amalia Kouvalis is a Chicago based artist with a BFA in oil painting and printmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is heavily influenced by dreams, silent films, melancholy, and Victorian aesthetics. As a longtime loyal visitor to Sideshow Gallery, Amalia was thrilled and delighted to display her oil paintings in the gallery space upstairs during the grand opening. Besides painting and printmaking, Amalia also creates whimsical jewelry and woodburned decor, which can be found in the shop, along with her art prints.

Amalia gets excited when she has the opportunity to talk about and promote self love, protection, and manifesting inner beauty based on her Greek roots and her love of Aphrodite. She encourages everyone to listen to their intuition regarding when it’s time to let go of people and situations that are toxic; Journaling, cord cuttings, and egg cleansings are Amalia’s favorite practices to keep her energy clear and protected.

At Sideshow Gallery, Amalia creates spell jars of all kinds with specifically chosen herbal, crystal, and oil ingredients for different intentions. If you’re interested in creating your own jar, feel free to ask Amalia for any advice! She also dresses the sage bundles, brooms, and created the Sea Witch window display for Summer 2023. Amalia updates the Sideshow Website website, writes the All Seeing Eye newsletter, and is the instructor of our Spellcraft workshop series.

Emily is a fine art conservation manager during the week, old school horror fanatic, and interested in Egyptology and ancient languages. She mainly collects things Halloween and horror related, and have 2 goth bunnies names Bela and Boris after Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff!

Rebekah has a long history of being a jack of many trades and accidentally and/or purposefully starting things on fire. She’s a Cancer sun with Capricorn rising and during the non snow season is continually cultivating a garden filled with magical plants, with a soft spot for stinging nettle, yarrow, lemon balm, sage and dahlias.

Rebekah is always down to talk about chakras in relation to one another. And the way we’re attracted to colors as a function of where we’re at in life. And Costco.

Maggie is a Chicago based singer-songwriter who enjoys spending her free time practicing glamour magic, burning candles, drinking matcha, and collecting second hand clothes for her goth/grunge wardrobe. At Sideshow, she has a passion for the jewelry section, apothecary, and oddities. Maggie especially loves antique religious objects, perfume, and taxidermy. She started out by consigning jewelry in the shop and can now be found working there during the week! Maggie also loves printmaking and drawing in addition to her musical pursuits. You can catch her gigging around Chicago as Mara Luna, her rock alter ego. When she isn’t writing songs or playing with her band, Maggie passionately enjoys spinning her many Elliott Smith vinyls, blasting Jeff Buckley, or having a New Wave 80s dance party in her living room.