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

It's a warm, breezy May afternoon, and Alexander Austin is wearing a worn, leather cowboy hat while lingering in the lot on the south end of the Power & Light District.

His white T-shirt is marked with errant brushes of dried paint, and his fingers are spattered, too. He's still strapped into the bright-yellow harness that lets him float 30 feet in the air in a giant hydraulic lift that takes up the corner of the mostly occupied parking lot.

His black boom box is tuned to KPRS 103.3, but there's enough activity in the parking lot that only short strains of Fergie and Ciara cut through the commotion.

A woman in a gray Toyota pulls up and waves a ticket in Austin's direction. She asks, "Hey, is this all I need?"

It's not unusual for Austin to be mistaken for a parking attendant.

But this artist doesn't mind.

A year ago, he was barely hanging on, worrying about where his next paycheck would come from. Now, the Lee's Summit resident is painting the Power & Light District's 18,000-square-foot south walls — the most prominent canvas in town.

Austin landed the job last year when the district's manager, Cordish Company, announced that it wanted something to cover the windowless walls. Someday, a second phase of the project will include condos that will block the south-facing expanse. Until then, Austin's mural of Kansas City history will stand like a gateway into downtown's north side.

Alexander Austin has left his artistic mark on the skeletons of Kansas City architecture for years. A drive along Troost shows a gallery of his past work: striking portraits of a civil-rights leader giving a fiery sermon, a historic recounting of the corridor's American Indian roots, a stark warning to area kids to stay in school or be chained to ignorance.

That's the home turf of Kansas City Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks. Inspired by his work, she floated Austin's name for the Power & Light project. "The people just look like they're about to speak," she says of his larger-than-life paintings.

The night before his first meeting with Cordish last September, Austin stayed up late sketching his own design for the mural, inspired by iconic figures from Kansas City's past. The company didn't go with Austin's vision. Cordish spokesman Jon Stephens says the company wanted a concept based on historical photos and artifacts, so Cordish selected California-based firm Selbert Perkins Design to create the design. Cordish then hired Austin to paint it.

That didn't bother Austin. The design was just his style. It tested all of his abilities, he says. Anatomy, architecture, lettering — it's all up there. He doesn't have much formal art training, so every day involves a little improvisation. "I'm kind of like an escape artist," he says, extending his arms and flashing a Houdini-style smirk.

He's a bit of a perfectionist, too. He has gone back at least 10 times, painting over spots where he wasn't satisfied with his own effort. The hand of the man waving on the mural's west end was a little too long. He's intent on getting the face of Charlie Parker just right, so that's been touched up several times. On the mural's east side, Austin still has to correct the extra punctuation on the "Kansas-City Monarch's" Negro Leagues pennant.

But Austin has the breezy attitude of a guy who has just landed his dream job. He talks with his head cocked slightly to the side, as though he's always about to break into laughter. His speech comes in excited bursts, like a sprinter leaping out of the blocks, and his mouth is never far from a smile.

He's old enough to have a 27-year-old son, but the only evidence of age is a slight hint of gray in the day-old stubble on the sides of his face. He certainly doesn't look his 47 years, with the slim but muscular build that gives him the stamina to work until 2 or 3 a.m., when the towering wall is illuminated only by the streetlights that belly up to Interstate 70.

"I paint as long as I can," he says. "Some nights, I stay until they run me off, like, 'Hey, man, could you, uh, leave?'"

But on this May afternoon, he's at a standstill.

"I'm just waiting for the Miracle Makers," he says with the bright eagnerness of a kid waiting to meet Mickey Mouse.

Tucked away in his little black sketchbook are the schematics for the Selbert Perkins design. But he's missing one key element to finish the oversized athletic pennant — the logo for the Kansas City Monarchs. That's where the Miracle Makers come in. That's what he calls the Cordish staff. One of them will run down from the administrative office and deliver a printout of the needed image.

You might not expect this kind of enthusiasm from a guy who's sweating away on a design that isn't his, on a project that won't do much for his bank account and a mural that might not stay visible to the public for long.

It's the kind of optimism uncharacteristic of a guy who has been homeless, who has seen his work demolished and declared his artistic career dead on more than one occasion.