/>Infinity sent us a link to an
article from last weekend’s New York Times that tells the story of Jim Power,
the artist who is responsible for all of the mosaics on the lamp posts (16 years
worth!) that can be found in the East Village of Manhattan.

Here’s
the article:

WITH FEW LUXURIES, AN ARTIST STICKS TO IT
By COLIN
MOYNIHAN
Published: December 12, 2004

JIM POWER was standing on
St. Marks Place in front of the Great Hall at Cooper Union recently, putting the
final touches on one of his dozens of pieces of public art that New Yorkers walk
past daily. Mr. Power is a mosaic artist and, during the last 16 years, he has
traveled a well-worn course through Lower Manhattan, using bits of glass, tile
and ceramic to form intricate designs on lampposts that are meant to commemorate
historic events and recognize the working people of the city.

Over
the years, the poles have achieved a measure of popular appreciation. Four years
ago, Eric Miller, a Ph.D. candidate in the folklore and folklife program at the
University of Pennsylvania, wrote a 47-page paper about Mr. Power’s mosaics. On
Nov. 18, Mr. Power was at the Museum of the City of New York, where City Lore, a
group that documents the cultural heritage of the city, presented him with an
award.

The citation for the award referred to Mr. Power as “New
York’s Mosaic Man,” adding that he has been “beautifying the city with
distinctive, artful mosaics for almost 20 years.”

“This is a
refurbished pole,” Mr. Power said as he scrutinized his work on St. Marks Place.
He explained that the elements take their toll on the mosaics and that they are
in need of regular upkeep.

Lately, the elements have been taking
their toll on Mr. Power, too. After spending years in the East Village, bouncing
from couch to couch or basement to basement - often paying little or no rent -
Mr. Power, 57, has been on the streets for the last three months. He sleeps on
park benches and in church alcoves. With him at all times are two suitcases of
clothes and possessions and his 4-year-old Weimaraner, Labrador and pit bull
mix, Jesse Jane.

As Mr. Power fit small pieces into his artwork, a
younger mosaic artist, Cara Jolly, paused to watch. Ms. Jolly, 26, who lives in
the neighborhood and works at New York University, asked Mr. Power for a few
pointers, and he happily obliged, embarking on a 20-minute soliloquy in which he
rated the merits of various adhesives, showed how to fit pieces of tile into
narrow spaces, and described the pole he was working on. In restoring that
mosaic, Mr. Power also decided to expand it extending the glittering design from
the base of the pole to about eight feet up from the sidewalk. Mr. Power
arranged tiles to spell out the names of people who had appeared at the Great
Hall, and organizations that have a tie to the building.

There was
Mark Twain’s name spelled out near that of Buffalo Bill’s. The N.A.A.C.P. was
included along with the Red Cross. Bill Clinton, one of the more recent
visitors, made it onto the pole.

Also emblazoned on the pole was Mr.
Power’s Web site, eastvillage.com, which he started a few years ago with the
help of friends and where he posts neighborhood photographs and updates on his
activities.

Other lamppost mosaics made by Mr. Power have similar
historic and local themes. One, on Broadway at St. Marks Place, is a tribute to
the New York Fire Department. Across Broadway, another one commemorates the
blackout of 2003. Originally, Mr. Power envisioned 80 mosaics. So far, he has
created 67.

Mr. Power has traveled a peripatetic path. He was born in
Waterford, in the south of Ireland, and moved to New York City with his family
13 years later. From 1968 until 1970 he was in the United States Army Signal
Corps and repaired radio generators between Saigon and the Cambodian border. The
first mosaics he saw, he said, were in Buddhist temples in Vietnam. After his
discharge he was a blues and jazz guitarist, a stonemason, and a Consolidated
Edison worker. But since 1988, the light pole project has been his calling and
his burden.

“I decided I wanted to make the city beautiful,” Mr.
Power said. “I wanted to create a big square that tells everybody the East
Village is an art colony.”

Mr. Power used to earn good money as a
stonemason, he said, sometimes as much as $2,700 a week in the early 1980’s. But
a succession of injuries and his determination to create mosaics, for which he
receives no financing, have changed that. These days he survives with the help
of friends. For years, sympathetic building superintendents let Mr. Power set up
house in East Village boiler rooms, where he kept warm in
the winter and
helped with light maintenance. But the raffish neighborhood Mr. Power called
home in the late 1980’s no longer exists.

Still, Mr. Power insists,
he is resourceful and doesn’t need luxuries to be happy.

“All I
really want is for my mosaics to be appreciated, and to have the time and
material to finish them,” he said. “That and a simple place to live for me and
the dog.”

Last month, at the Museum of the City of New York, part of
his wish was granted. The other part remains unfulfilled.