If colorful ceramic tiles are your medium and potholes are your canvas, where better to create art than New Orleans?<\/p>\n
The Crescent City\u2019s reputation for bumpy, pockmarked streets is ultimately what called the renowned Buffalo Pothole Bandit to town. Hailing from Buffalo, New York, the anonymous street artist travels the U.S. in search of holes and cracks that need filling, packing them with concrete inlayed with colorful mosaics of tiles, beads, letters and found objects.<\/p>\n
With nearly 18,000 followers on Instagram, the Bandit has renovated potholes from Oregon to Tennessee, gaining so much notoriety and media attention along the way, they spent a stint stumping for Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan \u2014 all without revealing their true identity. The artist goes to great lengths to remain anonymous, sometimes appearing in videos in a raccoon mask, partly because the legality of vigilante pothole filling is fuzzy in many localities.<\/p>\n
The Bandit\u2019s latest stop was New Orleans, where the artist spent much of the past month filling more than two dozen holes in the city\u2019s streets and sidewalks, leaving hidden messages behind in the asphalt.<\/p>\n
Consider this both an affirmation and a reason for hope: While the Bandit confirmed that New Orleans has some of the worst streets they\u2019ve seen, the artist was also witness to at least one government-orchestrated filling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually went to fill a hole I was planning on, and your city filled it,\u201d the Bandit said. \u201cTo be clear, I\u2019m not doing this to shame cities or governments.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A pothole at North Gayoso and Dumaine streets features a colorful play on words. Beagle for scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By KASEY BUBNASH | Staff writer<\/a><\/p>\n The Bandit\u2019s work was born out of utility but has evolved to frivolity. A pothole outside the artist\u2019s favorite bakery in Buffalo that had been the scene of one too many twisted ankles was the first they ever decided to fill.<\/p>\n \u201cI put some tiles and Scrabble letters in the fill for pizazz, and it went from there,\u201d the Bandit said.<\/p>\n Now the roadway imperfections are canvases that range in size from a crater that could seriously damage a tire to tiny crevasses no longer than an inch or two. The work is funded out of pocket and through donations provided on BuffaloPotholeBandit.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n In New Orleans, where Mayor Helena Moreno\u2019s administration aims to fill 1,500 potholes<\/a> a week, even 30 sizable holes filled isn\u2019t going to make a dent in the citywide issue. It\u2019s more like sewing a decorative patch on an angsty teenager\u2019s purposely distressed jeans.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s a delight to stumble upon one of these little masterpieces. Particularly when it means you aren\u2019t going to stumble into a pothole.<\/p>\n A sidewalk crack outside Wifey’s Bar is now home to a rainbow fleur-de-lis.\u00a0<\/p>\n By KASEY BUBNASH | Staff writer<\/a><\/p>\n At Wifey\u2019s Bar in the Marigny, owner Bobby Cohen said the Bandit graciously offered to fill two sidewalk holes just outside the LGBTQ bar, one with a rainbow fleur-de-lis and another with a reference to an inside joke at the foot of the bar\u2019s office entryway.<\/p>\n \u201cI tripped on that more times than I\u2019m willing to admit while loaded,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n But aside from the safety benefits, Cohen said he supports any effort to beautify the city.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really nice to be a part of that installation that went around the entire city,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cI\u2019m very grateful that they chose here to put some of that artwork down.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bandit left sprinkles of color behind all across New Orleans, on Magazine Street near St. Joe\u2019s Bar, throughout the Marigny and Bywater and as far as Gretna. You can find all the Bandit\u2019s works on a regularly updated Google map.<\/a><\/p>\n On Dumaine Street in Bayou St. John, the Bandit\u2019s creations appear suddenly in the road, cheery pockets of color among a minefield of craters. Most of the mosaics feature references to local culture or nods to the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n There are jokes in holes on Gayoso Street about it being \u201coh so gay,\u201d and a green alligator set in purple concrete near Dumaine and North Lopez streets. A few feet away, there\u2019s a mural of a dead truck that a neighbor said has been parked in almost the exact same spot for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cIt contains many found objects as well as actual bits of the truck that have fallen off over the years,\u201d the Bandit said on social media.<\/a><\/p>\n The Buffalo Pothole Bandit on social media dedicated this hole to the owner of a truck that has parked in the same Bayou St. John spot for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n By KASEY BUBNASH | Staff writer<\/a><\/p>\n The Bandit loves how excited people get about the mosaics, but they don\u2019t plan to go public anytime soon.<\/p>\n Though DIY pothole d\u00e9cor is nothing new in New Orleans \u2014 think the Jim Cantore pothole<\/a> and the notorious pothole turned swimming pool<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s not exactly legal. Plus, the artist doesn\u2019t want to be famous.<\/p>\n \u201cI also like being judged on the work itself rather than other aspects of my life,\u201d the Bandit said. \u201cLastly, people seem to enjoy the character I\u2019ve created and have asked me not to reveal myself. I\u2019m sort of like a comic book hero to them, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n If anyone needs a pothole-filling superhero, it\u2019s New Orleans.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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