Spring has just about sprung and, in most parts of the States, this means pothole season. With the outside temperature warming up and cooling down—sometimes to extremes—and all that extra precipitation, air pockets and moisture can get into the asphalt. With the weight of auto traffic added to the mix—bam! You got yourself some potholes.
If you see potholes in public streets, we highly recommend you report them to the DOT. But in the meantime, take a gander at what some creatively annoyed citizens have done to call attention to pothole problems in their towns:
The European Solution
A couple blokes from England have taken their gardening skills to the streets, filling in unsightly pavement divots with lovely little blooms. Steve Wheen sets up miniature scenes, while Pete Dungey’s guerilla gardens let the flowers, alone, do the talking. Of course, we don’t recommend doing this, yourselves…all that extra water is sure to do more damage to the surrounding asphalt. But it sure does look pretty!
A short hop over (under? through?) the Chunnel takes us to the streets of Paris, where renegade knitter Juliana Santacruz Herrera fills in her city’s cracks and dips with brightly colored yarn and fabric. The result is a rainbow-hued, eye-pleasing safeguard against sprained ankles.
Here in the Good Ole US of A
Chicago-based artist Jim Bachor fills in his city’s eyesores with bright, playful mosaics. We’re particularly fond of the BombPop installation. Never has a pothole looked so delicious….
And finally, two inventive New York-based artists reimagine potholes in the Big Apple (and LA, Toronto, and Montreal) as whimsical tableaux for their photographs. Surreal, playful, and hilarious, Mypotholes really knows how to poke fun at infrastructural deterioration.
If you’re suffering from a proliferation of potholes in your neighborhood or parking lot, give Black Diamond a call. We may not plant flowers in those asphalt craters, but we will surely turn your pavement into a work of art.
