Friends hope to make Super Flea Market a downtown 'staple'

For Isabella DeLucia and Aveeda Biparva, organizing a flea market along Carroll Creek was a full-circle moment.

The two friends, who are both originally from Montgomery County, met a few years ago in downtown Frederick and remained in contact.

DeLucia works at Yaneth Reyes LLC, a jewelry shop on North Market Street, and runs her own clothing business on the side. She decided to leverage her local connections and join forces with Biparva, who has experience in event planning, to put on the Super Flea Market on Saturday.

The daylong event featured more than 40 vendors selling items such as baked goods, crochet and knit artwork, handmade jewelry, prints, home decor, second-hand clothing and custom press-on nails.

"We know there's always a lot going on downtown," DeLucia said in an interview. "We want to be a staple here."

On one end of the creek, Sitarah Kassam was offering henna body art, as well as bags and canvases adorned with her henna designs.

Kassam, who works full-time as a project manager, is also the sole owner of the DMV-based Art of Hennas, a mobile henna business.

With the support of her husband and her parents, Kassam started the business in 2017 as an outlet for the stress and anxiety related to her main job.

"I like having this dichotomy in my life where this is my passion project, and it doesn't feel like work because it's just a side hustle," she said. "Doing henna for me is my meditation, and I like keeping it that way."

In another area of the linear park, Zaak Garrett of Flower Avenue Goods was selling curated home goods and oil pastel drawings.

Garrett said they grew up drawing with their grandmother and now creates art based on their dreams and ideas that come to mind while journaling.

"As a queer person, I feel like it's important to create work that is reflective of who we are and may be helpful to other people who are like me," Garrett said.

Garrett also frequents estate sales, where they look for items like candlesticks, pottery and trinket dishes to resell at markets like the one on Saturday.

On their way out of the event, Valerie Alward and Shawn Cavenee stopped to purchase a bird feeder made out of a dried gourd.

The gourd artwork was made by Mike Deeben of Loudon County, Va., who lives on a farm with his wife, Lisa Deeben.

Lisa said the couple started growing gourds as food for their goats and cows, but her husband started creating artwork out of them on nights when he had trouble sleeping.

Cavanee and Alward said they saw the gourd birdhouse when they first arrived at the Super Flea Market and decided to buy it on their way back down the creek.

Because Cavanee has his own business in downtown Frederick, Alward said, they always try to support small businesses at area events.

"We love local arts and crafts," Alward said. "We eat local, buy local and live local."