ATX – WEIRD?

There are a few more places we enjoyed that more appropriately met the “Keep Austin Weird” definition alive and are here offered for your consideration. Can’t say we had had enough of Austin quite yet!

The Cathedral of Junk is a living sculpture that was started in 1989 in the backyard of the creator, artist, and curator.  It is always in flux as new features are added and other older features are edited out.  The Cathedral is not just a pile of rubbish, but rather a gigantic 60-ton sculpture made up of just about every kind of found object you can possibly think of: tools, dolls, toys, car parts, phones, cd players, toilets, building materials, signs, bicycles, baskets, tires, bells, cinder blocks, TVs, mannequins, beads, etc.  Weddings and other special events have occurred in the Cathedral; families get permission to picnic, and annually there are 11,000–14,000 visitors.

Get 50 people in the Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon and the place is over-crowded.  Then toss in a live musical group and this honky tonk truly comes alive with an energy that gets your feet tapping.  Come with your own chairs on Sundays to sit around in the parking lot with 100s of your newest closest friends, listen to some of that live good ole country music, drink a bucket full of Lone Stars, and between 4pm and 8pm play Chicken Shit Bingo.  Yup – that’s right.  4 games of bingo played in a very special way.  We got in the queue and purchased our $2 ticket, on which was a traditional bingo number and color. Once all of the tickets are sold we got as close as we could to watch with amazement as a live chicken is placed in a cage whose floor is a bingo board.  The floor of the cage is strewn with chicken food and as the chicken enjoys its snack, well, oops, chicken shit is inevitable.  Whatever number the excrement falls on is the winning number.  The winner is called up to the stage by the band, the winner’s name is announced to the crowd, a picture is taken, and the winner is given a cash prize.  The 4 games are played hourly, and on the night we were there each winner’s award was $105.  What a gas.

In keeping with the quirkiness that is Austin, Sparky Park is a grotto-like creation on the grounds of a former power substation in a north-side neighborhood. Artist Berthold Haas was engaged to construct a whimsical wall to obscure the new substation and to make the park a serene, inviting, and almost fairytale place.  He created the mosaics from stone, wood, glass, metals, karst stones, aggregates, mirror balls, slag glass, broken antique glass dishes, ammonites and other shells; painted stucco, petrified wood, molded cement frieze, marbles, and repurposed ceramic disk insulators.

Hope Outdoor Gallery is a community paint park which was officially launched in March 2011 with the help of contemporary artist Shepard Fairey.  It is the only paint park of its kind in the USA, and it was developed to provide muralists, street artists, arts education classes and community groups the opportunity to display large scale art pieces driven by their personal inspiration.  It has become an inspirational outlet and creative destination for artists and visitors alike.  There is lots and lots of outlaw art in Texas, and the Hope Outdoor Gallery is recognized as one of the Top 10 in the State.  But as happens with that which is good, the day we wandered around the Gallery was to be its last.  The Gallery was to be closed the day after we were there, and it was slated to be torn down for condominium development.  We asked one of the working artists whether or not the Gallery would be dismantled and re-located, and we were told no, but a new location out near the airport was planned.  When expressing our disappointment that all of the work would be lost the artist responded “I’ve just decided that the last 8 years of work were practice.”

Getting bored in Austin just wasn’t an option.

Barbara and Brian