Judy Ledgerwood, Flowers for the Blue Line Racine Station, 2025. Artwork © Judy Ledgerwood / Chicago Transit Authority.

By CGN Staff

If you ride the CTA's Blue Line, your commute just got a lot brighter. Artist Judy Ledgerwood has unveiled a stunning new ceramic installation at the Racine Station, part of the CTA’s multi-year effort to make the Forest Park Branch fully accessible.

Titled Flowers for the Blue Line Racine Station, the work stretches across 40 feet of wall space, wrapping the station’s north and west walls in 704 hand-made tiles. This joyful burst of color and pattern transforms a daily commute into something worth slowing down for and also offers a chance to engage with art daily.

Ledgerwood developed the project in partnership with Ingrid Harding, Chief of Production at Munich’s historic Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, a renowned producer of fine ceramics since 1747. Each tile was individually shaped in red terracotta and finished with vibrant glazes, so no two pieces are alike.

Sixteen distinct tile designs repeat and recombine into quatrefoils — four-petaled flower forms — that shimmer and shift as you move through the space. The design echoes the white tile grid used throughout the station, blending seamlessly with the architecture while infusing it with Ledgerwood’s signature painterly energy.

“The installation reflects the rhythm of daily transit,” Ledgerwood says. “It’s familiar and routine, yet always changing.”

For more than four decades, Judy Ledgerwood has pushed the boundaries of abstract painting — challenging its supposed neutrality and reimagining it through color, pattern, and light. Known for her bold use of pinks, fluorescents, and pastels, Ledgerwood has long drawn inspiration from textiles, quilting, and the Pattern & Decoration movement.

This new installation marks her first permanent ceramic project of this scale, merging her painter’s eye with the tactile, enduring qualities of clay.

With Flowers for the Blue Line Racine Station, Ledgerwood joins an impressive lineup of artists — including Theaster Gates and Nick Cave — whose work brings Chicago’s public transit to life. Today, the CTA’s art collection features more than 80 installations across its system, each helping turn ordinary travel into a shared cultural experience.