In 2006, I was commissioned by the City of Chicago and the Chicago Transit Authority to create a permanent public artwork in the newly renovated Armitage Avenue elevated train station. The finished piece is 10' x 45' and is installed directly across from the turnstiles at the entrance to the station. The source material for this piece was a series of interviews that I conducted on the platform of the old station in 2007, several months before it closed for renovation. I asked commuters to tell me a meaningful story from their lives in Chicago and subsequently made a photograph of each story’s locale.

The finished piece is titled Chicago El Stories and consists of forty-two 20'' x 24'' photographs paired with quotes from the interviews, each mounted behind a glass tile. The black and white tiles surrounding the photographs depict a street map of the neighborhood surrounding the station. The tiles are permanently affixed to the wall of the subway station and have an estimated lifespan of 100 years.

Chicago El Stories was featured on the Chicago Public Radio program Hello Beautiful in June 2008 and appears in the book, Elevated: Art And Architecture of the Chicago Transit Authority