{"id":422,"date":"2011-01-15T21:10:35","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T01:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/?p=422"},"modified":"2025-12-28T09:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:59:37","slug":"the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/?p=422","title":{"rendered":"The Future is Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into my 65th year on this big spinning rock I have given to reminiscing. A young man from my past, Alexander Austin<\/a>, has become quite a sensation in the area around Kansas City. Known locally as Mural Man, Alexander has decorated the Power and Light District of KC with some of the largest and most stunning murals anywhere. For this he has been hailed as something of a urban hero, and that is fantastic.
\n\"2279508.28\"I said from my past so I will use some E-Ink and tell you the story. Around 1982 I was just starting in the sign business in Tallahassee, FL. The North Florida Fair held an art contest each year and as it happened I was asked to be a judge. I remember little about the works on display that day until I rounded a corner and came face to face with the most realistic rendering conceivable of Stevie Wonder. Nearly photographic, a closer inspection showed it had been done entirely in pencil! I told the organizer that I must meet the artist. As it turned out, Alexander Austin was on the premises. I had been given a glimpse into a rare, rare talent, and it rested on a young black man of just 20 years age. Amazing. We met and talked at length. That is when I found out he had some finance trouble that had led to law trouble that had led to despair. I did what anyone would have done faced as I was with the possibility that the world could well be deprived of this talent. I gave Alexander the time and money it took to get him out of trouble and a job to keep him out of it. I gave him the tools that have allowed him to use his amazing talent to change his part of the world, the talent came from God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heading into my 65th year on this big spinning rock I have given to reminiscing. A young man from my past, Alexander Austin, has become quite a sensation in the area around Kansas City. Known locally as Mural Man, Alexander … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}