I am a performance artist, and wh¬¬¬at I do is I have special instruments that I use to make large soap bubbles.
Most people in the park, most of the guys who know me consider me to be the first. I was the first one to bring this to Central Park. I was the first to stand out there and entertain the crowd with bubbles.
Before I started with the bubbles I was actually working, of all places, at a toy store. I used to work at F.A.O. Schwartz. My manager pulled me aside and told me that they were shutting down our department.
I was of course looking for a job. I was pounding the pavement.
I was downtown, and I saw a vendor on the street and he was selling these little bubble toys. I thought to myself, “That’s it. This is something I have to have.”
I started just going around the park at random, just making bubbles and entertaining the kids, making people smile, and people responded very well to it.

That’s when I realized, “I think I’ve got something here.”

The science of bubbles is actually just like any other science. It’s something that we utilize to the best of our ability, but we’re always refining it.
Some factors include, of course, the quality of the soap that you’re using.
Yes, I do have a secret recipe – which I’m not at liberty to divulge.
The best part about this is when I see little kids—babies, toddlers, infants—and I see the look of curiosity on their faces, and it just—oh man—it just gets me so so so so charged, because this is their first experience with seeing something like that.
Why does any person do anything? Why does an artist paint, or draw, or sketch? Why does a dancer dance? It’s a passion. It’s something that stirs your soul, something that gets you up in the morning, something that you have this—this, this inner desire for. And I think that’s what comes with me and the bubbles.

Stephen Duncan, 28, isn’t just one of those “bubble guys” in Central Park. He’s the original bubble guy in Central Park.
In 2008, after losing his job at a cafeteria in F.A.O. Schwartz, Duncan began roaming the park with his giant soap bubbles, which he makes using a pair of sticks attached to a loop of string. Since then, “bubbling” in Central Park has become something of a phenomenon, with at least five separate bubble artists performing at different stations throughout the park. Some have copied Duncan’s technique from afar; others have trained under him directly.
Duncan says he’s happy to share his art. “At first the thought did cross my mind about maybe a little competition,” he said. “But then I thought, I’m not out here to compete with anyone.”
When he’s not making bubbles, Duncan studies sociology at Brooklyn College, where he hopes to get his bachelor’s degree by the end of the year. Though he says he can make good money sometimes from the tips he gets for his bubbling, he doesn’t support himself with it. He lives at his mother’s apartment in Harlem with her and his brother, and uses the proceeds from his bubbling to help pay the bills.
In the future, however, Duncan hopes to make his bubbles into a full-time business. He has begun performing at parties, and has set up a website advertising his art. “The number one thing that I think about is the future,” he says.