Alexander Austin climbed his way up from the streets and onto Kansas City’s biggest canvas

But Austin hopes this mural is his miracle maker — the one that gets him off the roller coaster and settles his career and reputation in Kansas City.

Austin's introduction to art was cutting sewing patterns to help his mother, who worked as a cook and took seamstress jobs on the side. She needed the extra money to afford the three-bedroom home in Tallahassee, Florida, where she raised Austin and his 11 brothers and sisters. Everyone in the house helped with the sewing, and Austin cut shapes of hats and dresses.

He could draw, too. Even when the crowded house was a whirlwind of commotion, he sat at the big kitchen table, kept his eyes down and copied images of celebrities.

Austin was in middle school when the family moved into new federal housing. "When they started building the brand-new government projects, we were like, 'This is it, baby! Brand-new toilets that work!'"

The move wasn't entirely happy, though. On December 8, 1972, his sister Ersalyne was in an argument at a bar when a woman pulled out a gun and shot her. Meanwhile, Austin failed the seventh and ninth grades; by high school, he was showing up only for lunch and art class, so he dropped out.

He fell into the family addiction. His father, who left when Austin was 8 years old, was an alcoholic, Austin says. Several of his sisters struggled with alcohol, too, and when Austin was 16 years old, he remembers panhandling outside the liquor store with his friends, gathering enough change to buy fifths of whiskey. He experimented with drugs, including crack. But it was the alcohol that stuck.

Austin got his GED at Lively Technical Center, where he also studied graphic art. He got some experience at Lively painting billboards. When Ron Gallimore — the first African-American gymnast to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team — opened a new center in Tallahassee, Austin painted the lettering and the silhouettes of two performing gymnasts.

When he was 19 years old, his high school sweetheart gave birth to his first child. His drinking habits interfered with some job opportunities, though, and he had a tough time cobbling together enough money from odd work — cleaning the glass on high-rise buildings was one job — to pay child support. By the time he was 21, he had fallen so far behind that a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

His big break came in 1982, when Austin entered his artwork in the North Florida Fair. Painter Alan Pippenger turned a corner and stopped dead in his tracks in front of a drawing of Stevie Wonder that Austin had submitted. "I found myself rooted to the spot I was standing," Pippenger says. "It was a simple drawing, done entirely in pencil, that grabbed me by the throat."

Pippenger put up $1,000 to keep Austin out of jail. Pippenger says he got behind on his own rent, but he didn't ask Austin to pay him back in cash. Austin repaid the favor with artwork. Austin worked for three years with Pippenger, filling in lettering for billboard ads, learning how to use special brushes.

In 1987, Austin's sister Adele got sick. She lived in Kansas City, so the aspiring artist hopped a Greyhound. Knowing Kansas City was the headquarters of Hallmark and big-name advertising agencies, he brought along his portfolio.

His limited education earned him only rejection. He got evicted and was too embarrassed to ask his sister for help. He slept under the steps of the Valentine Shopping Center, in the stoops of buildings downtown and even in Dunn Park, across the street from his sister's house on the Paseo.

After a couple of weeks on the streets, he took up residence at the City Union Mission. One morning while heading out to look for a job, Austin spotted a man on a ladder, working on a small sign. Hank Bloomquist was living in abandoned buildings at the time, Austin says, and making a few bucks doing signs for small businesses.

Austin asked if he needed a hand, and the two lived together in an empty, rodent-ridden warehouse on Truman Road for months. Bloomquist was adamant that any co-habitant be completely drug- and alcohol-free. While he lived with Bloomquist, Austin went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and got sober.

One evening, Austin followed the sound of live music to the 18th and Vine district. It was an outdoor concert, and local musician Sonny Kenner was jamming a Bob Marley tune onstage.

With Bloomquist, he had discovered his future canvas: abandoned buildings. In the Jazz District, he put his work on display.

Austin started hanging out at the Mardi Gras Club near 19th Street and Vine. He wasn't drinking then, so he camped out in the corner with a pad and pencil and sketched patrons for $10. Club owner Charles Allen Sr. noticed Austin's ability and asked him if he'd paint the likenesses of jazz legends on the bar's brick wall.

Allen gave him a few buckets of black and white paint, but Austin didn't have any other supplies. Instead of a paintbrush, he used a stick with a rag tied around the end. He dipped the cloth in the paint and created pictures from countless dots. The technique, called stippling, was crude, but in 1989 Austin created the images of musicians such as Charlie Parker and Count Basie.