A familiar summer tradition now lives on in paint at the Oak Lawn Park District Pavilion, where a new community mural celebrates generations of residents gathering to watch Fourth of July fireworks.
The latest addition to the Pavilion’s growing public art project was unveiled July 2 and featured the work of Oak Lawn artist and Richards High School special education teacher Kathy Magaña. Her mural captured the annual fireworks display at Richards High School from the perspective of families gathered near the baseball fields, with Wolfe Wildlife Park stretching across the background.
Rather than focusing on the fireworks themselves, Magaña chose to tell the story from the crowd.
“I just always felt like one of my memories from Oak Lawn is doing the fireworks at Richards High School,” Magaña said. “I wanted to put in something that really is a moment in Oak Lawn, where a lot of people are together, and include the different parts of Oak Lawn that are represented.”
The painting depicts a cross-section of the community, including young families, older residents and people from diverse backgrounds enjoying the celebration together. One child wears noise-canceling headphones, a detail inspired by Magaña’s experience teaching students with disabilities.
Visitors who take a closer look will also notice a Richards High School bulldog tucked into the artwork, a tribute to the school where Magaña teaches and one that has long been part of her life. She grew up in Oak Lawn before returning to Richards as an educator.
The mural is the third completed piece in an ongoing community art project at the Pavilion, an initiative created to brighten the facility’s indoor track while celebrating Oak Lawn through the eyes of local artists.
Pavilion General Manager Cate Coyle said the idea began as a way to make the walking track more inviting.
“I started brainstorming ideas to beautify the track,” Coyle said. “The original idea was to have people come up and paint the walls directly, but we realized that would be close to impossible with all the traffic we have up there.”
Instead, artists were invited to create 5-by-5-foot panels in their own studios, allowing each piece to be completed before being permanently installed inside the Pavilion. Every participating artist was required to have a connection to Oak Lawn, and each mural was designed to reflect the community in a unique way.
“We are excited to see this project taking off with three murals completed and three more in production,” Coyle said. “The response from the Pavilion members has been overwhelmingly positive.”
The murals have transformed sections of the indoor track into a colorful gallery celebrating the people, places and traditions that define Oak Lawn. With three additional panels already in production, the collection is expected to continue growing in the coming months.
The completed murals are on display at the Oak Lawn Park District Pavilion and are open for public viewing.