As you travel past downtown Shreveport on I-20 and look to the cityscape, you'll notice the gigantic painting on two sides of the AT&T building. Most Shreveport residents might think it just a cool piece of art or something to spruce up the old brick facade, but believe it or not, there is much more to the 14-story mural than you might expect.

Here's five things you might not know about the painting.

  • 1

    It Is Nationally Recognized

    The mural is the largest publicly-funded mural in the nation, and a true community project.

    It was produced by a team of professional artists and 2,600 community painters under the guidance of muralist Meg Saligman, a nationally and internationally recognized mural artist.

  • 2

    It Has A Name

    The official name for the mural is "Once In A Millennium Moon."

  • 3

    The People Depicted Are REAL People

    The 19 people depicted in the mural are from three months to 80 years of age. The models were selected randomly from a cast of thousands, and reflect "diversity in ethnicity, religion, gender, age, and neighborhood."

    The girl holding the fountain with the baby in it is actually a good friend of mine. She lives in Seattle now and thinks the mural is one of the coolest things she was ever a part of.

  • 4

    It's A GIANT Paint-By-Numbers Canvas

    Saligman perfected a “paint by number” grid that is applied to sheets of plastic cloth.

    Once painted the cloth is “floated in acrylic” on the wall, much like wallpaper installation. Paint Parties were held all over Shreveport! Festival sites, parks, club meetings, art galleries, bank lobbies, and schools became home to paint sessions.

  • 5

    Every Item Means Something

    The mural depicts forty different object throughout the 30,000 square feet, and each one of them mean a different thing. Each one is an heirloom that has meaning to a family or person in the Shreveport/Bossier community.

    You can read what every one of them mean at (you guessed it) southernlagniappe.blogspot.com/.

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