On a Sunday in early June, an unusual kind of commerce takes over the Wilma Rudolph Event Center. Rows of booths offer handmade artwork, taxidermy, and other unique creations that won't be found at an ordinary craft fair. The venue stays packed throughout the day as shoppers stop to browse, and for three years running the Clarksville Oddities & Curiosities Market has drawn this crowd from across Tennessee. The third annual edition, held June 7, 2026, was no exception, filling the hall with more than sixty indoor and outdoor vendors selling weird, cool, spooky, hand-made items alongside snacks, treats, food trucks, coffee, and refreshments, with free admission and free parking welcoming everyone in. It is a scene that would have been unthinkable in Clarksville just a few years ago, and its existence is the work of one particularly passionate organizer and the community that grew up around her.
The market began not with a grand business plan but with a felt absence. Its organizer, Matty Parson, had run a boutique in town called The Velvet Ghost, and she noticed that there weren't many markets that catered to people with those interests. So Parson built one herself, deliberately, for the weirdos and misfits, as she has put it. The first Oddities & Curiosities Market arrived at the Wilma Rudolph Event Center, and by the summer of 2026 it had grown into an annual institution.
Before she became a market maker, Parson had teamed up with another Clarksville artist, Blossom Robertson, who had come into Parson's boutique to teach painting classes. The two found they shared a vision, and together with their spouses, Dustin Parson and Dahlia Robertson, they opened The Ghoul Haus, a boutique and gallery that has become a clubhouse for the city's misfits. Its gallery, called B.A.A.T., short for Bringing Alternative Art Together, lets local artists display their work for free and only charges a small commission on sales. The shop also runs a Saturday Night Market with live music and has hosted metal showcases raising toys and money for Toys for Tots. The philosophy that runs through all of it — the shop, the gallery, and the market — is one of open doors. "When you come here, no matter what your reason for coming in, you're one of us," Parson and Robertson have said, a spirit of inclusion that extends to welcoming everyone, not merely tolerating them.
What sets the Clarksville event apart, its organizers say, is curation. "I hand-pick my vendors," Parson said, and that attention to detail creates an experience where each booth feels like stepping into a new world, giving visitors the chance to discover something new as they make their way through the market. The result is a loop of community-building: the market draws people who love creativity beyond the ordinary, and the artists who show there find a receptive home.
In 2026, the market added a notable rule: a no-AI policy for vendors. "You can get AI work anywhere… but that's not the point of this market," Parson explained. "The goal of the market is to celebrate artists and give shoppers the opportunity to support work created by real, talented people." It is a stance that fits the ethos of The Ghoul Haus, whose owners have told aspiring makers: "Don't expect to get paid right away! And you have to care and have a passion for the thing you do or there's no reason to do it. Money can't be the reason." That is the kind of thinking that fills the market with handmade creations instead of mass-produced duplicates, and it is why the no-AI rule felt natural rather than gimmicky.
Beyond the taxidermy that gives the event its macabre reputation, booths offer handmade art, jewelry, clothing, and other one-of-a-kind creations. The craft itself is the point, not the bottom line. As the organizers have put it, "Art is creating whatever you want. We don't tell anyone you can't," and they encourage artists to be themselves. A market with a no-AI rule is the natural extension of that philosophy: here, originality is the entire reason for showing up, and the buyer is invited to support a real, individual hand rather than a cold machine.
Even as the market grows, drawing attendees from all over the state, its founders insist the mission has not changed. It remains focused on giving artists a space to show off their creativity, originality, and uniqueness, and in doing so it has built a community of both makers and buyers across Tennessee. On that Sunday at the Wilma Rudolph Event Center, the hall fills with the unusual, the beautiful, the strange, and the handmade, and the crowd keeps coming back year after year. For the weirdos and misfits who once had no market of their own, Clarksville now has one, and it is packed, spooky, and all theirs.