Next time you find yourself in the Windy City, don’t forget to watch where you’re walking or driving.
Chicago artist Jim Bachor has been turning the city’s potholes into works of art for over a decade. He installed his first mosaic in a pothole back in 2012, and since then he’s transformed hundreds of the street hazards into charming and surprising bursts of color, humor, and talent.
1. Jim uses pieces of Italian glass to make his artwork.
2. His first pothole mosaic simply said, “pothole.”
3. One of his most popular mosaics simply says, “this is not a pothole,” following the idea that an unsightly blemish is now something else, something artistic.
4. “It’s all about juxtaposition,” the artist explained.
5. “If these works were stand-alone pieces of fine art, I’d probably sell them for around $3,500 each,” he added.
6. Jim’s artwork gets a lot more exposure than it would if it appeared in a museum.
7. Many locals and tourists say that spotting one of the pothole mosaics makes their day.
8. These days, Jim spends a lot of time repairing older work, which gets damaged by the wear and tear of traffic.
9. His newest series is called “Master Pieces,” and it features four pieces of artwork found in The Art Institute of Chicago. Here’s a snippet of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.”
10. Andy Warhol’s “Mao” is also included in “Master Pieces.”
11. As is Vincent van Gogh’s “The Bedroom.”
12. And a glimpse at Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.”
13. “It’s just that little bit of unexpected joy which is kind of a fun thing for me,” Jim told CBS News in 2017.
14. Each piece takes eight to 10 hours to make in Jim’s studio. He then lays the delicate work on cheesecloth and transports it to its new home on the street.
15. Jim sets up orange traffic cones as he painstakingly fills in the hole with concrete and sets the mosaic on top. It’s dangerous work, but he loves what he does!
Jim sells prints of his work online, and he has a large, devoted social media following! He’s beautifying the city, one ugly pothole at a time.
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