Oddities

EVAN MICHELSON, CO-OWNER

An inveterate collector and museum aficionado, Evan Michelson is co-owner of Obscura Antiques & Oddities now, but in the 80s, she was a rocker ... with a twist. Her first band — a gothic/industrial/post-punk outfit called Killer Weasel — would set fire to things, hammer industrial refuse and cover the audience with (fake) blood. After rumors quickly spread that a few audience members had died at Killer Weasel's first show, in Michelson's words, "It was all good from there." In fact, Evan met her husband — a graphic artist, musician, composer and animator — while scavenging junk, looking for instruments for their respective industrial bands.

In the 90s, Evan moved on from post-punk to cyberpunk, followed by a straight-up fetish band that played dungeons and playgrounds. But her obsession with things melancholy and funereal began well before her musician days. Passionate about anatomical/medical antiques and artistic depictions of the extremes of human experience, she's infatuated with the point where "art melds with pain and ecstasy," not to mention the esthetics of grief.

Evan Michelson, for one, breaks for cemeteries.

As far as business goes, Evan attends markets and auctions weekly, earning her nicknames that include "Morticia Addams" and the "Death Lady." She is also an ethical vegetarian, a Victorian hairwork collector, an aesthete, and scholar-in-residence at the Morbid Anatomy Library, where she delivers regular lectures.