Author Archives: googleplex-admin
Sniper’s Delight
A Book Cover
Military art by muralist Paul Barker
A portfolio of images from the Airborne Special Ops Museum, the Cantigny First Division Museum (exhibits for Battle of the Bulge, WW1 and Vietnam III Corps Map), and my military paintings. I haven’t included images from the Marine Corps Museum. To view the whole collection in sequence, click the first image, then use arrows on the left and right to advance or retrace.
III Corps Vietnam Map for Cantigny First Division Museum, Wheaton IL
Discovery Room, St. Lucie County Aquarium Smithsonian Exhibit, Fort Pierce FL
Oculina Reef Mural, St. Lucie County Aquarium Smithsonian Exhibit, Fort Pierce FL
Florida-Coastline Map, St. Lucie County Aquarium Smithsonian Exhibit, Fort Pierce FL
Wildwood Zoo Bears, Marshfield WI
Montford Point Exhibit at the Marine Corps Museum
Mount Royal Branch, Duluth Public Library, Duluth MN
Where Technology Gets Us
This morning was a fine, sunny morning. I sat out on the front porch swing watching the world go by across our front lawn while enjoying a healthy breakfast. Organic nuts, seeds and berries with organic soy milk in an organic bowl.
I was smugly content that I was getting my minimum daily requirement of organic riboflavin, bioflavinoids, vitamin F, phyto-nutrients, proto-miscreants and other essential, important sounding stuff.
Tasted like the box it came in. Good roughage, I guess.
Like many minds, mine tends to wax philosophical before I’m completely awake.
Oxley Nature Center, Tulsa OK
Philadelphia Zoo Aviary, Philadelphia PA
SportZone
Brookfield Zoo Tropic World, Brookfield IL
Tryon Palace, New Bern NC
Rainforest Café
Museum of Science and Industry Temporary Exhibits, Chicago IL
Henry Vilas Zoo Visitor Center, Madison WI
Greek Restaurant Ceiling
Pennypack Environmental Center, Philadelphia PA
Prehistoric Coal Forest
Wissahickon Environmental Center, Philadelphia PA
Great American Mural Competition
National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, Casper WY
Lake Superior Zoo Australian Exhibit, Duluth MN
Walt Disney World construction barrier
Painting of Lincoln
Sei Seiki Microscapes
Snowy Planet, Atlanta GA
Pirate Tree House
Malevolent Mermaid
Trompe L’oeil and Faux Finishes
Lewis and Clark State Historic Site, Hartford IL
Cypress Swamp Diorama
Henry Vilas Zoo Creature Corner & Giraffes, Madison WI
Painting of Woman on Dolphin
Website launch
After months of hard work, we launched this website officially today, July 24, 2014, which I note for the sake of historians who will surely want to record the date for posterity. We used Constant Contact to send an email to everyone in my email contacts, both business contacts and friends, and so far have heard back many friendly congratulations. Continue reading
What the Hex a Googleplex?
On a cold winter’s day in 1985 when I lived in The-middle-of-nowhere, Illinois (near Kankakee), I decided to go into mural painting as a full-time job and I asked my seven-year-old son, J.P., what I should call my new company. His immediate response was, “Call it Google!”
Continue reading
News at Eleven
I’ve been interviewed for local TV newscasts on a number of jobs. As I mentioned in my Mostly True Tale, Why They Call It Windows, I’ve recently been editing some of these videos for this website. Here are the news interviews uploaded so far gathered together in one place. Continue reading
Why They Call It Windows
I’m a frustrated filmmaker. Continue reading
Como Park Zoo, Saint Paul MN
Henry Vilas Zoo Anacondas & Classroom
One of my most consistent and enjoyable clients is the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin. The director, now retired, was a Viet vet like myself, and a former Green Beret, so we hit it off instantly, trading War stories. My most recent job for Henry Vilas was in 2012, some rainforest walls in the Education building which included an Anaconda exhibit. The two huge snakes, on the other side of a plexiglass sliding door, made no secret of their desire to help me paint. At least I think that’s what they wanted. Continue reading
Ponce Inlet Marine Science Center, Ponce Inlet FL
Brookfield Zoo Aviary Free-Flight Room, Brookfield IL
Tutti Italia Store
Ratty’s Riverbank Cottage Diorama
St. Lucie County Aquarium Smithsonian Exhibit, Fort Pierce FL
Smithsonian Institution, Duck Stamp exhibit, Washington DC
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley CA
Polk Nature Discovery Center, Lakeland FL
Nevada State Railroad Museum, Carson City NV
National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, Port of Dubuque IA
Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, Coloma CA
Louisville Zoo, Louisville KY
Lincoln Park Zoo Australian exhibit, Chicago IL
HELLPP!!!
In late 2011, the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago asked me to repair a number of deteriorating murals in their primate building and aviary. Continue reading
Kansas City Zoo, Kansas City MO
Bigfoot
Bigfoot and Me
Model Train Layout Surround
Miniature golf
Presidential Pumpkins
Rooftop Santa with Sleigh and Reindeer
Kansas Wesleyan University, Salina KS
MacLean Power Systems Lunchroom
Erie Zoo Amur Leopards, Erie PA
Erie Zoo Lowland Gorilla, Erie PA
REI, Seattle WA
Sculpture
Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo Orangutan Exhibit, Fort Wayne IN
Mammal Eggs
Charity Gala Booth Backdrops
Painting Rudolf
A brief informal video of Santa Claus, his sleigh, and his reindeer I painted late fall 2013 (including Rudolph, his nose not yet painted red) for a residential client in the Chicago suburbs to install on his rooftop in time for Christmas. Continue reading
Elf Cottage
What Not To Do at the Zoo
Some of my earliest memories are of the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans. My family lived in my Grandfather’s big house within hearing distance of it. As a toddler I knew when it was noon because the lions would start calling for lunch. I still love the quaint WPA zoo buildings with animals carved into the brick, the formal fountains and statuary. But in retrospect I realized that the zoo in the early 50s was actually an animal prison with iron bars whose tops curved down into spikes aimed at the animals. The inmates lived out their life sentences in small cells. Given the spirit-crushing boredom, I can’t help sympathizing with an inmate taking the opportunity to fling something at the gawking bipeds outside. Continue reading
Jesus Was a Plumber?
A long time ago, when I was working as a custom cabinetmaker and doing murals as a sideline, I was hired to paint a religious scene in the lunchroom at a Catholic hospital in a rural Illinois town. Supervising me would be the half-dozen-or-so nuns from the order that had founded the hospital. Continue reading
Bird Brains
I was painting a beach scene for a flightless shore bird exhibit for the renovation of the aviary at the Milwaukee County Zoo in 1993. The Zoo folks seemed pleased with what they were seeing, commenting on how realistic the sand dunes looked. “Like you could just run up them,” they said. Continue reading
Where’s Pauldo?
It all started while on my first zoo job at the Milwaukee County Zoo. They asked me to paint lichen on a tree trunk in a rhino hornbill exhibit in the aviary. While I was making the green-and-gray blobs, I realized one of them looked sort of like a silhouette of a person, so I added a tall collar and a pompadour and, voila — Elvis! Continue reading
