Mosaic Monday Salutes Chicago Artist Jim Bachor

This Monday is Memorial Day, so I refer you to my post about the World War 2 Monument in Green Hills Memorial Park, which is surrounded by mosaics.

Meanwhile, I will blog today about an artist in Chicago who is filling the city's potholes with art. His name is Jim Bachor, and I read about him at Zócalo.

Bachor fell in love with mosaics and traveled to places in Europe like Pompeii to view them. He considers mosaics to be indestructible, which is probably why he's not irate that the city of Chicago has covered up a couple of his mosaics on their streets with more traditional street repairs. Only a couple.

Since he started in 2013, creating the street art has become a game. Bachor spies an appropriate hole, designs a mosaic to fill it, and shows up with wet cement (I imagine at night). He does the deed, posts pictures on Instagram, and his followers are thrilled.

In fact, they've created a Kickstarter page for him, since - as you might guess - filling in potholes in Chicago without jumping through the proper administrative hoops does not pay much. Curbed Chicago reported earlier this year that over $5,000 had been raised through Kickstarter.

Would love to see this attempted over our roads. There's certainly plenty of fertile and pocked ground for it, not just in Los Angeles but in nearly every city in the county.

As you can see (and go to Bachor's own Pothole Installation Page if you need more proof), the man is partial to frozen treats, but flowers and whimsy are also present.

In fact, on his portfolio page I spotted mosaics of Rod Blagojevich, and several of the drawings that we used to see on the back page of comic books, with the caption "Are you an artist?" You'd draw the cartoon and send it to this art school for evaluation, then sign up for their long-distance classes (way before the internet). Also portrayed: Mayor Daley, packaged meat, Twinkies and Hohos, Starbucks and McDonald's, 3-D Caesar, and much more. All for sale!

Bachor is busy and probably won't be shipping any 20 pound mosaics to Los Angeles for midnight installation (not to mention the requisite wet cement). But other artists may be inspired by his accomplishments. Maybe?

We can hope.