Artwork by Jim Bachor

I grew up in the Chicago / Northwest Indiana area. Winters with snow and salt were tough on the roads. If you are from Chicago you know that road construction is a way of life. We seemed to never catch up with it.

We all cringe when we hit a pothole, our car jerks, and we immediately hope our axel survives and curse ourselves for landing in the pothole — bad maneuvering, right!

Photo of Jim Bachor: Web Urbanist

As I live on the West Coast now, I am not always up on Chicago news. Thanks to Bon Appétit Magazine, I recently read a wonderful article about artist Jim Bachor who lives in Chicago and decided to add art and beauty to our city by covering potholes with mosaics that he makes. This was a brilliant idea!

Bachor has a passion for this art form, which he learned in Italy. He started out with flower mosaics for the potholes. As the cost is $70-100 per mosaic, and he wanted to do more, he raised $4,600 through a Kickstarter Campaign to create 10 more mosaics. He chose ice cream as his next pothole theme.

Certainly this is a labor of love, each piece takes 8-10 hours to make plus 2+ hours for installation. As an artist, this allows him to be creative in a positive way making a lasting impression in Chicago and hopefully the world. Finland brought him there to install some pothole art for an end of winter festival they were having.

My mother was born and raised in Florence, Italy, so for me, it is a true pleasure to see this special art form being sprinkled around Chicago!

I can hear Pavarotti in the background while Bachor installs these pieces of art. FANTASTIC!