Jim Bachor
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Jim Bachor (born ) is an American graphic designer, street and
mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
artist. He is known for his contemporary mosaics produced using ancient techniques. More recently, Bachor has become well known for the mosaic art that he has installed in
potholes A pothole is a pot-shaped depression in a road surface, usually asphalt pavement, where traffic has removed broken pieces of the pavement. It is usually the result of water in the underlying soil structure and traffic passing over the affected ...
on the streets of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Antonio, Nashville, Los Angeles; Carrara, Italy; and
Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Central Finland. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Jyväskylä is approximately , while the Jyväskylä sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately ...
, Finland.


Early life and education

Raised in suburban Detroit, Bachor pursued a pre-engineering program for two years at Michigan State University. He ultimately transferred to the Center for Creative Studies in downtown Detroit and graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design. In the late 1990s, Bachor traveled to
Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...
, Italy, to study the ancient art of the mosaic.


Career

He worked as an associate creative director at
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
ad agency
Foote, Cone & Belding FCB (previously Foote, Cone & Belding) is one of the largest global advertising agency networks. It is owned by Interpublic Group and was merged in 2006 with Draft Worldwide, adopting the name Draftfcb. In 2014 the company rebranded itself as F ...
. After a visit to
Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...
, Italy, Bachor found mosaics that survived an ancient volcano and in 2013 he decided to begin filling potholes in Chicago with mosaics, with images such as a popsicle and flowers, and the message that it's "not a pothole anymore." In the summer of 2014, Bachor completed ''Thrive'', a 700-square-foot commission for the
Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...
that was installed in the city's Thorndale Red Line "L" station. In the fall, he was commissioned to create an in-store floor mosaic at Nike's flagship store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. In 2016, he installed several mosaics in Philadelphia, in collaboration with ''HAHA Magazine'' x Paradigm Gallery. One was entitled ''Make Your Mark''. The same year, he installed a mosaic in front of the ''Spirit of Detroit'' statue on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. In May 2017, he made his first political statement with a pothole mosaic in which the word "LIAR" was placed over an image of the Russian flag. It was installed on Wabash Avenue near Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. It was first made when Trump was sworn into office, and was installed during the period when it became known that Trump held a White House meeting with Russian diplomats in which he disclosed highly classified information.


References


Further reading

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External links


Jim Bachor's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachor, Jim 1964 births American mosaic artists Living people 21st-century American male artists Artists from Chicago Artists from Detroit