It’s as reliable a sign of spring as buds on the trees and unfounded optimism in Wrigleyville: city crews patching the pockmarked streets. Irritated by the endless, cyclical nature of street repair in Chicago, artist Jim Bachor decided to pitch in. As part of a personal public art/public works project, he’s been repairing potholes with custom mosaics, including a Chicago flag design and one with the number 361,841—as good a guess as any for how many craters exist in the city’s roadways.
“It’s a power play when you buy your own traffic cones,” Bachor says. “People obey them and you get a weird sense of power.”
