Children's Healing Art Project

The genius of Austin Winters continues to encourage, engage and inspire the world through the Adventures of Bacon Boy. Austin’s superhero, Bacon Boy, is an animated strip of bacon that shoots hot grease out of one hand, hardened bacon bits out of the other and has meat vision, often appearing as corn dogs but as Austin clearly stated, ”It can really be any meat product.” Bacon Boy battles Fry Guy, a cast iron fry pan that rides through the air on a skateboard powered by two AK47’s.

The real power of Austin’s creativity can be experienced through his sense of humor found in the art he created during some of the most difficult and painful days of his short but brilliant life. Austin’s narrative, the ongoing battle between Bacon Boy and Fry Guy, can be seen as his personal battle against his evil nemesis, cancer. Austin’s art has inspired the best of his best hospitals buddies, Luke, to create Sinister Sauce, a devilish character based on a Tabasco sauce bottle, his sister Tori has also jumped in with Bacon Girl….Bacon Boy’s sister.

Austin is the catalyst, the art detonator, and the instigator in the form of a strip of bacon who has inspired others to join in the conversation about the fight against cancer. Other patients have wanted to join in the art party but are often lost in their own world of physical and emotional response/reactions to cancer. Frank Etxaniz, Executive/Artistic Director of CHAP, was talking with Gavin one day as he was battling his own demon… throwing up from the chemo….and Barf boy was born. If Barf Boy wants to tie someone up he simply eats spaghetti and then throws it up and his enemy is bound in the ropey remains of his meal….freeze them…eat a ton of ice cream, pin them to the wall…easy…. eat nails and puck em out at super speed.

The Shaker/Earthquake, the Snooze, Pill Pusher or Pill Pucker and Nassty Needle are on their way to battle Bacon Boy. The brutal battle against cancer can be seen in the graphic illustrations of these children living with cancer, but the humanity and hope can be found in the humor and ridiculousness of the characters they create and the lives these villains live as they battle Bacon Boy.

Purchase your very own Bacon Boy, Bacon Girl, or Sinister Sauce T-Shirts HERE!!!

NBC

The ongoing battle against cancer has a new hero……Bacon Boy. Freed from the imagination of Austin Winter’s during his sentence of isolation while undergoing his bone marrow transplant for AML. This 10 year old artist created his superhero out of a strip of bacon with super powers that include shooting hot bacon grease out of one hand while the other shoots hardened bacon bits as bullets and has not heat vision but meat vision, usually seen as corn dogs but as Austin told us, “It can really be any meat product.”

The Adventures of Bacon Boy began with his battles against Fry Guy, a cast iron fry pan who flies through the air on a skateboard powered by two AK47 machine guns. Austin’s narrative paralleled his own personal story in ways that have continued to revel itself nearly a year after his death. Bacon Boy has since become a work of glass art created from his original drawings now housed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Glass in Tacoma Washington. The creators of the phenomenon known as Bacon Salt are partners, because as Doug -----said, “My best friend died of Leukemia when I was eleven, I could not do anything about it then but I can do something about it now.” 12,000 hits for Austin on the Internet, T-shirts and embroidered patches are being sold, buttons being given away and two yellow suits are being beaded with Swarovski crystals over the drawings of the adventures of Bacon Boy. News crews continue to ask about what is new with Bacon Boy and Public Television is filming an episode for Oregon Art Beat to be aired this fall.