Mount Greenwood Park adding art

Community to help building mosaics

March 6, 2008

By STEPHANIE GEHRING
Staff writer

When the Mount Greenwood Park Advisory Council began planning for a new playground at their park they wanted to add public art.

Kathleen Riordan, a council member, said the committee wanted to make the park a destination where families would want to picnic and spend time.

"We wanted a very beautiful setting and what better way to do that than to bring in public art," she said.

The council has been working with the Chicago Public Art Group or CPAG. Artists from CPAG designed some large musical instruments for auditory and sensory stimulation and have planned for seven 8-foot tall totem poles decorated with community mosaics.

While the artists from CPAG will design the mosaics they will use components of art work from community residents. Children and adults alike attended the second of two mosaic design workshops Saturday at Mount Greenwood Park and several area schools also submitted art work, Riordan said.

Once the designs are approved the community will help to build the mosaics, Riordan said.

The advisory council has been working for the last three years to raise funds and design a new handicapped accessible playground to replace the tired and unsafe equipment at Mount Greenwood Park. The project is expected to cost about $1 million.

Groundbreaking on the project could take place later this month, Riordan said.

1.2 million

collected to date