Cathy Free
Jim Bachor travels cross-country filling potholes for a living. Not just with cement: he turns them into art and social commentary.
Bachor uses hundreds of pieces of Italian glass and marble to create the sometimes subversive mosaics, which he installs on the ground to beautify unsightly city streets. He doesn’t work with cities, he works rogue, and places the mosaics himself.
Bachor began his pothole art in his home city Chicago by installing the word “pothole” in black and white marble in a road hole 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.”
He was recently in Washington DC making pothole mosaics of wolves for a conservation group.
Before that, he installed an image of a spine ‒ to “remind people of what that is,” said Bachor, 58, in a pointed political barb.
Bachor’s work includes a TV remote control, cats, a Twitter blue check mark, the words “I couldn't do this if I were Black” and other images to make people stop and look, including the word “LIAR”.
He’s worked in many cities, including New York, where he’s made mosaics of dead rats, pigeons and cockroaches. He was called “Pothole Picasso” by the New York Post.
Pothole complaints have mounted, and he scouts around before he decides on a work site.
“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 about 2m away."
It can’t be in the middle of the street “because I don’t want to block traffic and I don't want to get hit”.
Bachor said he became intrigued by mosaic art in the late 1990s during a trip to see the ruins of Pompeii, Italy.
"A guide pointed out a mosaic 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.”
When he was laid off from his job in advertising, he decided to make a living as an artist.
“In 2013, the potholes in my neighbourhood were particularly bad,” Bachor said. “I remember thinking that potholes were an unsolvable problem that were fixed temporarily, then always had to be redone. Everyone hates them.”
While staring at a gaping pothole in front of his house, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I thought, ‘Why not take this durable art form that I’m so passionate about and fix this problem?’ ” he said.
Bachor filled the pothole with cement and stuck a flat piece of artwork saying “pothole” on the top.
After that, deep craters that once caused motorists and cyclists to growl became something to admire.
Bachor enjoyed turning the streets into a drive-over gallery and was soon installing mosaic hot dogs, Cupids and flowerpots.
Soon he was selling his art, and people were hiring him to fill potholes.
Now he spends about 10 hours on each piece and said he has created 108 artworks, including commissioned installations.
During the pandemic, Bachor filled three potholes with mosaics of hand sanitiser, a roll of toilet paper and a can of beer, then dubbed his creation “The Holy Trinity”.
He posts photos of each project on Instagram and leaves a goody bag filled with pothole stickers, patches and limited edition prints for his followers to find near the new street art. - Washington Post
The Independent on Saturday