Photo: Jim Bachor via CBS News.
If any of you were following this blog in 2015, you might have seen what a stealth artist was doing in Boston to highlight crumbling infrastructure. Check out that artist’s Lego patchwork here.
Today, a different artist is working on potholes — using mosaics, not Legos. And he’s not anonymous.
Cathy Free reports at the Washington Post, “Jim Bachor travels across the country filling potholes for a living. He doesn’t just fill the unsightly road gaps with cement, he actually turns them into art — and often, social commentary.
“Bachor uses hundreds of pieces of Italian glass and marble that he cuts to create the sometimes subversive mosaics, which he installs on the ground to beautify unsightly city streets. He doesn’t work with cities on the installations, he works rogue, and he places the mosaics himself.
“Bachor began his pothole art in Chicago, where he lives, by installing the word ‘pothole’ in black and white marble in a road divot in 2013.
“ ‘People loved it and thought it was funny,’ he said. ‘Was it legal? I still don’t know. I decided to turn my hobby into a bit of a Robin Hood thing. If I had to ask for permission, I wouldn’t be doing this.’ …
“In D.C., Bachor was hired by the #RelistWolves Campaign, a privately-funded group that is working to get Northern Rocky Mountain wolves reclassified as an endangered species in an effort to get them the same protection as other gray wolves.
“Samantha Attwood, one of the group’s co-founders, said they decided to hire Bachor to fill several potholes with mosaics of wolves to help draw attention to their efforts. …
“He made the pieces earlier in his basement studio in Chicago, then selected the locations himself after asking a few of his Instagram followers in D.C. to narrow down the possibilities. Attwood said she was pleased to see the campaign take off in front of Solid State Books at the 600 H Street location.
“ ‘The store put up a display with books and information about relisting the wolves, and they made sure that Jim’s pothole didn’t get covered up by cars parking there,’ she said. …
“He diligently scouts before he decides on a work site for his art, which usually measures 18 inches by 24 inches.
“ ‘The perfect pothole is actually really hard to find,’ said Bachor. ‘It has to be on the edge of a road that isn’t too beat up, and people have to be able to see it from five or six feet away.’ …
“Bachor said he first became intrigued by mosaic art in the late 1990s during a trip to see the archaeological ruins of Pompeii, Italy.
“ ‘A guide pointed out a mosaic on the site and said the art looked the same as the artist intended 2,000 years ago because marble and glass don’t fade,’ he said. ‘It blew me away to think that an art form could endure for centuries after I was gone.’
“Bachor returned to his advertising job in Chicago and began dabbling in mosaics. When he was laid off from his job and decided to make a living as an artist, his inspiration came from an unlikely place.
“ ‘In 2013, the potholes in my neighborhood were particularly bad,’ Bachor said. … Bachor filled the pothole with cement and stuck a flat piece of artwork on the top, making his first in-ground art very meta with the word ‘pothole.’
“After that first project, Bachor said he decided to transform other ugly potholes in his neighborhood into asphalt masterpieces. …
“Bachor enjoyed turning the streets into a drive-over gallery and was soon installing mosaic hot dogs, Cupids and flowerpots. For some of the designs … he installed the phone numbers of car repair places he liked, which he considered a public service.”
More at the Post, here. There is one mosaic based on Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” and another showing Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom.” The “Dead Rat” mosaic made me laugh.
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