Cathedral of Junk

While Gayle was looking at Google Maps to find a location in Austin she saw a location for something called the Cathedral of Junk.  We both immediately googled it and decided that we had to go see it.  Vince Hannemann created this amazing "sculpture" out of junk.  It is more than just a sculpture.  Cathedral is the right word.  He started it in 1988, inspired by a documentary he saw as a child about the Watts Tower in Los Angeles.  He is an artist who didn't want to buy material so he used junk.  Everything we read said, "Don't just show up.  Call first and make an appointment."  The voicemail on his phone said that the next appointment day would be Saturday, October 28.

So once we had our coffee and we were busy packing up to leave Austin, Gayle called Vince.  He answered and agreed we could come on by his place in about an hour.  "Please don't park in front of my house, park around the corner," was his request.

As we approached his house we could see a large pile, I mean cathedral, behind his house.  In front of his house is a small sculpture that includes Co2 cartridges, electric toothbrushes, a pair of boots, etc and the letters COJ (Cathedral of Junk).  A small bench out front has the following words inscribed on it:  "Welcome Peeps to the Point of Despair."  

Vince was sitting on his back door step.  He welcomed us in through the gate and introduced us to his three sweet and docile dogs:  Lucas, Smoky and the third one's name escapes me.  There is a donation box by the gate.  Vince encouraged us to start in a shed near the gate in which he has a brief timeline of how he got to the point of building a cathedral out of junk.  Plus there is interesting stuff everywhere.

In 2010, Vince was told that his sculpture was a violation of code requiring an engineer's letter.  It took seven months, tons of volunteers, an architect, a lawyer and an engineer for him to get the proper paperwork to keep most of his sculpture intact.  In 2019, he declared the sculpture 99% finished.  To call this 40 ton, three level artwork a "sculpture" can't possibly explain the magnitude of what we experienced.  It is impossible to capture the cathedral in a photo.

Vince told us about the two staircases by saying things like, "Turn left at the refrigerator." Gayle snapped photos of the suggested scavenger hunts (one easy version, one difficult version) and we set off.  

We found the refrigerator and started to climb up one set of stairs with interesting items seated in the cement.  

There is no welding in this sculpture.  It is all held together with wire, cement and pieces being "puzzled together", as Vince refers to the structure.  Gayle took a rest at the top.

When we got to the bottom, we turned at the refrigerator....

and headed up the second set of stairs made by using tires and cement.

Once back down we stood in the large room in the center.  It is amazingly tall.  It was raining while we were there but I looked upwards and imagined what it would have looked like to see the sun hitting all the mirrors, bicycles, cds, etc.  I was in awe, just like when I enter a large cathedral in a foreign city.  

I was on sensory overload after an hour of wandering around inside the rooms,

down the hallways

and then walking around the outside of the structure.

Gayle and I found a few of the scavenger hunt items but we missed many of them.  Back at the gate I asked Vince if he has ever been to Watts Tower.  "No," was his only reply.  We put in our donations by the gate, bid Vince good-bye and went in search of food.

My daughter-in-law and the waiter in Dallas both recommended we try breakfast tacos.  We worked up at appetite at viewing the Cathedral of Junk.  We headed for Papalote.  It turns out that I love breakfast tacos!

We still had some time to kill before we wanted to head to San Antonio so we drove down to South Congress Avenue, called SoCo by the locals.  It was a hopping place.  Finding parking was a challenge.  I turned around in the Jesus Deaf Lutheran Church parking lot to find some street parking.  The Texas School for the Deaf is located in Austin and is the oldest continually operated public school in Texas.

We found someone to take our picture at the I love you so much mural.

The street was packed with Gen Z pedestrians dressed for a night out, instead of for shopping in hot, humid weather.  We poked our heads into a couple of stores.  Austin is covered in art.  There are murals everywhere.  

And some of the crosswalks are rainbows.

We were hot and sticky.  The temperature outside was 80 degrees but the humidity made it feel like 88 degrees.  We felt like we were walking through a wall of water.  To cool ourselves down we got in line at Amy's Ice Cream (a recommendation of our waiter in Dallas.)  It was the best ice cream of my life.

Before leaving town we drove through Zilker Park.  We enjoyed some of sculptures at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden before we hopped on the freeway and made the 90 minute drive to San Antonio.

We are staying in the guesthouse of this home in San Antonio.

The guesthouse isn't shabby either.  

We unloaded, rested, wrote our blogs and then headed out for some Chinese food in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant close by.  We will begin to explore San Antonio tomorrow.