Join us for the closing art reception of the solo show Actuación Femenina by artist Isamar Medina aka Kawaii Suga on Saturday, April 13th from 7-9pm! Tarot and oracle readings will be available by Osythia.

Isamar is a Chicago based creator who brings their complications around femininity to ‘drawing sad girls in a sexy limbo’.

“Actuación Femenina” is Spanish for feminine performance. Something I've lived with all my life.
I've struggled internally for a long time with femininity. With feeling like a woman. It's always funny because people love my art for that reason, but I myself never felt "worthy" of being a woman. I always identified with evil, flamboyant cartoon/anime characters. The ones that brought out the drama. I felt strange wearing jewelry. Wearing nice clothes. Doing acts of self care like getting my nails done. It felt wrong. I know femininity is more than that; but I couldn't even find myself fitting in that space mentally. I didn't have a gender identity issue, but I didn't feel like I deserved to be "beautiful" as a woman should be. I didn't feel like I deserved the privilege of being a woman. However, I still knew how to perform. I knew what to say. How to apply make up. How to walk in public. I knew the amount of sweet to add to myself; & how to react in a way that was "acceptable" of a lady. Now that I've grown, I don't feel the need to perform. I just am. I'm allowing myself to be soft. To indulge in what brings me joy. To put myself first, and it feels so good.

We are so excited to announce our February art show will feature the art of Isamar Medina aka Kawaii Suga titled Actuación Femenina. 💕 Isamar is a Chicago based creator who brings their complications around femininity to ‘drawing sad girls in a sexy limbo’.
Opening reception is February 17th, 2024 from 7-10pm.
💕 Snacks and refreshments
💕 Tarot & Oracle readings by Osythia

Isamar Medina is a Mexican-American South Side native. Her art explores the hypocritical social taboos women face, subverting ideas of femininity and control.
Growing up she was inspired by underground comics and manga, a staple in her style.
She specializes in painting and drawing, with a passion for telling visual stories through her work. Her art has been exhibited in several galleries across Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Colorado.

Beyond exhibitions, she has also painted murals and collaborated with local brands. She hopes to expand her artistic reach to new mediums in the future, as well as helping new artists find their voice.

Her art is held in private collections all around the world. “I believe whatever the viewer gets from my artwork, is a reflection of themselves”

About the show: " "Actuación Femenina" is Spanish for feminine performance. Something I've lived with all my life. I've struggled internally for a long time with femininity. With feeling like a woman. It's always funny because people love my art for that reason, but I myself never felt "worthy" of being a woman. I always identified with evil, flamboyant cartoon/anime characters. The ones that brought out the drama. I felt strange wearing jewelry. Wearing nice clothes. Doing acts of self care like getting my nails done. It felt wrong. I didn't have a gender identity issue, but I didn't feel like I deserved to be "beautiful" as a woman should be. However, I still knew how to perform. I knew what to say. How to apply make up. How to walk in public. I knew the amount of sweet to add to myself; & how to react in a way that was "acceptable" of a lady. Now that I've grown, I don't feel the need to perform.
I just am.
I'm allowing myself to be soft. To indulge in what brings me joy. To put myself first, and it feels so good. "

Please join us on Saturday, January 13th, 7 to 10 for an Astrology themed group art show with over 30 artists. Let's ring in the New Year by celebrating the signs of the Zodiac, Planets, Moons and our favorite Celestial bodies!

There will be tarot readings by Osythia Oracle.

Sponsored by Revolution Brewing 

East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer, and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved seaside village of Cleftwater. Having lost her voice as a child, Martha has not spoken a word in years.

One autumn morning, a sinister newcomer appears in town. The witchfinder, Silas Makepeace, has been blazing a trail of destruction along the coast, and now has Cleftwater in his sights. His arrival strikes fear into the heart of the community. Within a day, local women are being captured and detained, and Martha finds herself a silent witness to the hunt.

Powerless to protest, Martha is enlisted to search the accused women for “devil’s marks.” She is caught between suspicion and betrayal; between shielding herself or condemning the women of the village. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that belonged to her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret, and the gallows are looming…

Set over the course of just a few weeks that will forever change history, The Witching Tide delivers powerful and psychologically astute insights about the exigencies of friendship and the nature of loyalty, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction.

Join us for our 10 year anniversary extravanganza on October 28th from 6-10pm! This is an event you do not want to miss! Festivities include: 

• A Circus Sideshow Performance by "Welcome To Fun" 7-8pm

• Sword Swallowing, Magic Tricks and Illusions! 

• Magic Shows every 30 minutes in our upstairs parlour.  Tickets $10, first come first serve. 

Join us throughout the evening in our magical garden starting at 6pm. Come spin The Wheel Of Destiny, enter the fortune telling tent for Tarot & Crystal Ball Readings with Kat Rubio, partake in some refreshment and of course rock out!  Special appearance by food truck: The Guilty Pig. Please come in costume! You know we are really going to bring it this year!  We can't believe it has been 10 years…We look forward to celebrating with you! 

Sideshow Gallery is so proud and grateful to be celebrating 10 years in business.  Our shop and community has evolved in such a beautiful organic way while we stayed true to its roots and intention.  It has been an honor to bring people together through art and magic.  We believe that staying connected is extremely important and we hope we have provided a space for you to gather, learn, get inspired or meet someone new anytime you enter these doors.  Our shop is a place where people can be vulnerable without being judged.  It will always be our pleasure to shine a light on the magic you have within you.  Thank you for 10 amazing years! Magic is real!

Love Cheri & Anne

Join us in the Sideshow Courtyard for a Halloween Market on October 14th from 1-6pm!

Check out our vendors!

• Witchhaus Alchemy: Candles

• MoonSpells:  Art & Jewelry

• Purrfect Pineapples: Lingerie & Vintage

• Truly Ghouly: Leather Masks

• Herban Offerings: Plants & Flower Crowns

• Third Coast Tarot

• Jackalope Coffee

• Michaels Mugs Ceramics

• Alexandra Winthrop: Art

Shake off the bad luck with Sideshow Gallery this October, Friday the 13th from 12 to 7pm!

Sideshow will have all of your good luck spell needs at our special Spell Bar. We will be on hand to personally help you create your own spell with our unique array of ingredients and ritual advice. 

Sweet Moon Macaron will be in store serving up their special, lucky sweet treats!  

Tarot Card Readings with Huge Witch 12 to 7pm. 

This is all in conjunction with a special Friday the 13th flash event at Revolution Tattoo. What could be luckier than that!?

Join us October 11th from 7-8pm to discuss Something Wiccan This Way Comes by Michalea Moore. This event is free to attend, books will be for sale and she will sign them!
A Tarot-reading witch and a high-tech billionaire combine their talents to solve crimes, clear their names, and find true love. Something Wiccan This Way Comes from Eloquent Peasant Books combines romance and magick with a witchy flavor and a hint of Tarot wrapped in a mystery. Think J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas meets Practical Magic.

Something Wiccan is the first book in an eight-book series, The Wheel of the Year Mysteries. Many witches celebrate the eight Sabbats, known as the Wheel of the Year. Each book is centered around a Sabbat.

Something Wiccan takes place in the near future in a world riddled by pandemics. Maren Lilienthal, a rebellious heiress and witch, is cheated out of her fortune and forced to return to her wealthy family and hometown. A town where old secrets, ghosts, lovers, and enemies never die. Maren believes the safest place for her might be the broom closet. Cyrus Harper, a sexy billionaire who made his fortune with virus-scanning technology, charms her into coming out. Not everyone falls under the spell of the town’s newest couple or wishes them well. When Cyrus and Maren are framed for a ritual murder on Imbolc, the Wheel of Fortune Tarot reading holds the answer to what happened. Will white magick, Tarot, and technology save them or make things worse? Something Wiccan is definitely not your grandmother’s cauldron.

Something Wiccan was inspired by a managers’ meeting from hell. Our division VP called someone’s presentation “a mishmash of voodoo ideas” and the presenter “a crazy witch.” Despite a salvo of gasps and disapproving snorts, he persisted, calling her ideas a miscarriage; the woman had returned from leave following a stillbirth.

A coworker whispered, “I wish she was a witch; she could stick some voodoo pins into him and finish him off.” I replied, “Then we’d have the Salem witch trials in our very own conference room.” She said, “You should write a novel about that.” Thus, the seed was planted. It germinated a decade later and flowered into an idea for a series of novels with a modern witch as the protagonist.

While Something Wiccan germinated, I wrote two “training wheels” novels about Ancient Egypt, which may still see the light of day. But, writing a series is a different beast than writing a stand-alone novel. Confession time: I am not a plotter. Even during my career as a technical writer, I eschewed outlines. I have a sneaky feeling that if I outlined, I’d never write the novel, having gotten the idea out of my system. Nor am I a full-fledged pantser because I know where every novel will end. For me, the joy is in the journey.

Still, a series requires a bit more discipline. I created a character Bible with a cast of characters, their homes, their clothes, their life events, the music they listen to, and so forth. In a series, I also realized that you must plant clues in one book that might not come to fruition until several books later. I have eight journals (one for each novel). I record ideas and scenes for future books, paste photos that inspire me, create Tarot readings, and add articles that are part of my research.

My motto is “Aim low, achieve high.” I try to write every day. I’m mostly successful; I don’t beat myself up if I miss a day. I don’t aim for a specific word count. Some days it’s a paragraph, and sometimes an entire scene. My Egyptian novels took 10 and 2 years to write, respectively. Something Wiccan took a year; the second book, Season of the Witch coming out in May, took 9 months. My critique group jokes that I should get Book 8 out in a week. I begin each writing session by listening to what I wrote the previous day to get back into the flow; I use Word’s ReviewRead Aloud feature.

I’ve always been a reader and a writer. There’s a well-concealed photo of me on the potty chair “reading” a picture book. I taped stories written in crayon to the bricks of my grandmother’s front porch. In 3 rd grade, I published my first novel using an old typewriter.

Back in the days when carbon paper was the only way to make copies, I produced three copies of a story about my grandfather teaching my cat, duck, and chicken to eat together. I received 25 cents from my grandmother, mother, and a neighbor. Magic, right?

As a child, I was the Queen of our Public Library, which looked like a castle; the children’s reading room was a tower. My favorite books were The Girls’ Book of Famous Queens and Cleopatra of Egypt. I checked out those books so often the librarian said I was depriving the other children and limited my check-out privileges.

You don’t get interested in Egypt without stumbling into its magical system. Egyptian magic led me to the world’s first and arguably greatest witch/magician, the goddess Isis. Once you find Isis, you’re on the doorstep of a great love story. Isis is the protagonist in my first Egyptian novel, Queen of Heka. I washooked on powerful, magical women who love powerfully. . . when they find a worthy man. I wanted to

write about them. Magic is the icing on the cake.

Find out more about me and my books at https://www.michalea.com/. Something Wiccan and the next

book, Season of the Witch, are available at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXMY157X.

Join us Thursday, October 5th from 7-8:30pm to discuss Pam Grossman’s Waking the Witch. Our Bell, Book, & Candle community book club is free to attend!

When you think of a witch, what do you picture? Pointy black hat, maybe a broomstick. But witches in various guises have been with us for millennia. In Waking the Witch, Pam Grossman explores the cultural and historical impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil in early modern Europe and Salem, to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales and horror films to the rise of feminist covens and contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women.

In this fascinating read that is part cultural analysis, part memoir, Pam opens up about her own journey on the path to witchcraft, and how her personal embrace of the witch helped her find strength, self-empowerment, and a deeper purpose.

A comprehensive meditation on one of the most mysterious and captivating figures of all time, Waking the Witch celebrates witches past, present, and future, and reveals the critical role they have played—and will continue to play—in shaping the world as we know it.

Join us for our opening reception of Sophia Rapata’s solo show at Sideshow Gallery on September 29th, 6-10pm!

Sophia Rapata has been working as a full-time artist since 2014. She graduated from the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in Illustration & now resides in Northwest Indiana.

She paints using watercolor, ink, coffee, wine or even beer if she’s doodling at a local open mic.

Most of her characters magically dance along the edge of melancholy & whimsical.
Cats, witches, suns, moons, nature & all things Halloweeny are her specialty.
She’s traveled to Salem, MA, Los Angeles & New York for art events & sells her original paintings & prints worldwide online.
At first glance her art may seem a bit dark, but she believes it’s merely a reflection of the struggles we all go through in life. It’s a form of therapy for her & those who relate aging human exterior with the heart of a child. There’s always hope in the eyes, their watery vulnerable eyes.

This show will feature Sophia’s newer works inspired by moon & candlelit meditations.

Many were created out in the woods with river water, twigs & watercolor.

Waiting in the Woods is a diary of emotions & the comfort one finds in Mother Nature.

In celebration of the Autumn Equinox, Sideshow Gallery will be hosting a Harvest Witch Farmer’s Market on September 23rd from 1-6pm.

Our vendors include:
- Vargo Brothers Ferments
- Gypsy Alley
- Abbey Davis Ceramics
- Plant Mami
- Covet and Devour
- Crybaby Sweets
- Jim Franks Bread
- Que Mala Bruja
- Third Coast Tarot

At 6pm, Lunar Ash will be providing an acoustic set! Free to attend, open to all!

The Gothique Market…for goth ghouls and goblins! This event is open to the public Saturday, September 2nd from 5-9pm

Our market will feature 10 fantastic vendors & the goth queen herself, Scary Lady Sarah playing all of the darkest dance tunes. Come decked out in your finest goth attire to be entered in the best dressed contest! 

Join us for our next Bell Book & Candle book club on Thurs August 3rd. We will be discussing Monica Furlong’s WISE CHILD, a book that comes highly recommended by Pam Grossman.
Registration is not required. If you have some old witchy books you are not reading, bring them along for our community book exchange!

The coven’s back together to help adorn your body and get in tune with yourself. Get bedazzling tooth gems by Skin and Stones, unique high quality permanent bonded jewelry by White Wolf Syndicate, and have a refreshing look at a situation through tarot readings with The Demon Cleaner! The event is 1-6pm on July 27th.

Please join us for The Green Witch Market July 8th from 1 to 6pm in the Sideshow Gallery Garden We have all of your needs! A magical Farmer’s Market like no other! It is a literal feast for your mind, body and soul! 

Celebrate this beautiful summer with this glorious line-up of local growers and makers: 

• Produce and eggs- Chili Trout Farm

• Pickled Veggies- Vargo Brothers Ferments

• Wild Witch Preserves

• Tea- The Feral Herbalist 

• Cry Baby Sweets

• Plants-Herban Offerings

• Candles by Solis Illuminatum

• Handmade Brooms by Kita

• Gypsy Alley’s floral creations

• Plants N Stones

• Magickal balms and oils by Black Magick Shoppe

Tarot Readings by Third Coast! Sample some Chinola liqueur snow cones while you shop. Nothing could be better than that! 

We’re cleaning out our basement of horrors and our coven is bringing a variety of their castoffs. From antiques, to totally bizarre junk, to clothes…we’ve got something for you! The rummage sale will be located in our yard — follow the signs! The shop will be open 12-7pm.

*Weather permitting

Join us May 6th at 7pm for the exciting book launch of Magician and Fool by Susan Wands!
The book talk with Susan Wands will be led by Laetitia Barbier (author of Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive). Don’t miss this chance to get a signed copy by Susan Wands at Sideshow Gallery Chicago!

Pamela, a seer and empath, is hired by a cult to design tarot cards, and discovers she must summon the muses of her cards, the Magician and Fool, to help her thwart her nemesis, Aleister Crowley, an up and coming magician with the Golden Dawn. Crowley has issued a threat: give up the creation of the tarot deck, or he’ll harm her muses. A war of magicians begins.

Susan Wands is a writer, tarot reader, and actor. For thirty years, she works as an actress on Broadway, in films, regional theatre, and an off-Broadway troupe Rumble In the Red Room where she performed her own material. Her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was performed at the Cornish Institute in Seattle Washington and new works at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she was a company member. Susan has lectured at several Occulture Berlin Conferences and with Morbid Anatomy on tarot and the artistic life of Pamela Colman Smith. A co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, she helps produce monthly online book launches and author panels. Susan’s historical novel featuring Pamela Colman Smith is the first of a series, Magician and Fool, Book One Major Arcana Series, is published by SparkPress in May 2023. The second book, High Priestess and Empress, will be published by Spark Press in 2024, and Emperor and Hierophant, the third book in the series, is in final edits.

Calling all cannabis friendly folks! Join us Thursday, April 20th from 4-9PM for our 2nd Annual High Holiday 4/20 Market! Sideshow Gallery will be hosting a variety of vendors with unique handmade goodies, featuring:

• Herbals by Holy Mother Botanicals

• Tarot Readings by Third Coast

• Florals by Gypsy Alley

• Jewelry by Heavy Ritual Smithing

• Edibles by City Baby Sweets
  

Our next Bell, Book, & Candle title we will be discussing is Ami McKay’s The Witches of New York on Thursday March 16th. Set in New York in 1880 around the musings of two women who run Tea and Sympathy and their young shop girl, the story weaves tales of ghosts, seers, social circles, and evil that lurks the city streets. Registration is not necessary and the book club is always free to attend.

Copies of the book are available for purchase in the shop.

Join us February 11th for a Valentine’s In-Store Event!
• The Sideshow coven will help you make a love spell at the spell bar.
• Exclusive Love Witch bath bomb by Witchy Women World Apothecary.
• Dried floral botanicals by Petal Pusher.
• Tarot Readings by Corinne Halbert.
• Sweet Treats and Divination services by Kat of Gatos Locos Bakery.
• Psychedelic hand painted adornments by Michelle Marshall.

Call the shop at 773-276-1300 to book a reading or walk ups will be taken as well.

Join us for our last holiday market of the year!
Vendors include:
• Moody selling apparel and gifts
• Night Eyes selling tooled leather goodies
• Gypsy Alley Krampus Botanical Collection Fresh and Dried Floral
• Cry Baby Sweets CBD infused sweets, cakes, cookies, drinks

Chelsea Ervin will lead us through a 60 min all-levels yoga class to doom, sludge, stoner, and drone metal. Learn accessible sequences that will help to open up and stretch the body as well as regulate the mind…all while enjoying the heavy and slow rhythms of the best metal bands! Class is held every Thursday at Sideshow Gallery, weather permitting.

Each class will be $20. DM @chels_teaches_yoga on Instagram to sign up and payments will be accepted through Venmo, Zelle, or CashApp.