For some time, blowing bubbles has been a metaphor for not doing anything important, but Warwick’s own Keith Michael Johnson has given the lie to that old chestnut – unless you think the education of your children isn’t important.

We are not talking about the bubbles you played with when you were a kid. Johnson makes big bubbles. Huge bubbles. He makes bubbles that can wrap around an average-size person, or even several people at the same time, and he has a counterpart in the Far East that goes further than that.

“I buy some of my solutions from a guy in South Korea,” Johnson said last week. “His wife tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people inside a bubble. She got 100 people inside a bubble but she did not make the book, because she needed help to lift the hoop she used. The hoop was too big and too heavy for one person to lift.”

(Science teacher Robyn Wheldon-Williams set the record in Venue Cymru, North Wales, with 59 children on July 4 of 2008.)

Johnson has taken bubble soap where store-bought products never went before, and it’s been a long time since he bought anything off the shelves.

Still, he contends that the toy version is not that dissimilar to the solutions he concocts himself.

“Big or small, it’s basically just dishwashing detergent that I add other things to, like glycerin,” said Johnson.

Johnson declined to say how much glycerin or any other details about his formula. He has earned the right to be secretive about it. He has been working on making the biggest, longest lasting bubbles possible since 1986, after he learned of a physics professor who had taken soap bubbles to unimagined heights, or more accurately, sizes.

“His name was Eiffel Plasterer … who was a physics professor who began to make bubbles on the side,” said Johnson.

Plasterer obviously took his bubbles very seriously.

“He held the record for keeping a bubble the longest time...340 days. He was in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. He made his own equipment and solutions…He used hydrogen gas that exploded with a bang until he was not allowed to use hydrogen anymore.”

Johnson mentioned that Plasterer was also unusual in that he was born, lived and died in the same house. Perhaps it was all the time he spent at home that inspired Plasterer to work with bubbles. In any event, he inspired Johnson to begin working with and studying bubbles.

That was not what the Roger Williams College student set out to do when he graduated. Johnson was already in the entertainment field, in what he called “Movement Theatre,” a kind of performance art, and was doing programs in schools. He once needed a big bubble for a lesson about weather.

“That’s what got my curiosity about bubbles going,” he said. “There were very few people working with serious bubbles at the time. Just a couple of people.”

After learning about Plasterer’s work, Johnson got into studying his own formulas for bigger and longer lasting bubbles. The bubbles were an excellent way to get the kids’ attention and gave him a way to painlessly introduce them to the physical facts that constitute the study of nature, like surface tension or humidity.

Johnson says his shows are based on elementary school curriculum. Some of the programs are Mad About Math, Wild about Weather and Science Isn’t Always Pretty, a program that includes Silly Putty, Slime, owl pellets and breaking the sound barrier. He says “encasing” children in a bubble definitely gets their attention.

Curiously, Johnson said it isn’t the children who are most impressed with the huge bubbles.

“It’s the adults who are impressed,” said Johnson. “They ask more questions about the bubbles. Kid’s already think that anything is possible but older people are awed by the things I do with bubbles.”

Fortunately for Johnson, his programs are essentially immune to the budget cuts schools have been faced with recently. He said he does about 250 shows a year. Schools know it’s a lot cheaper to have him come to schools than take kids to science museums, or other educational outings.

But not all his shows are for kids. He has done adult demonstrations and is willing to fly anywhere to do a show, provided they supply the conditions necessary to create and sustain large and small bubbles.

“I need an enclosed area that is protected from the wind,” he said. “I once went to a show where they had me set up outside. I just couldn’t do the show.”

Johnson said he does do demonstrations outdoors but conditions have to be exceptionally still and favorable for bubbles.

“Humidity is probably the most important condition,” he said. “If it is too dry, the water evaporates and the bubble is gone.”

Johnson has specially built equipment he brings to his programs, including a stand topped with what looks like a small satellite dish. Properly moistened, it supports the bubble while he does his amazing feats of bubble-ry, including making a bubble shaped like a cube.

“There was a time when everyone said it was impossible to make a cube,” said Johnson, “until someone did it.”

Johnson does it by blowing a cluster of six bubbles and then blows a bubble in the middle of the cluster. The round outer bubbles serve as the sides for cube shaped in the center. If you can’t see it clearly enough, Johnson will stick the cube with the steam of a fog-making device he uses. It doesn’t break the bubbles.

“You can actually stick your finger in a bubble without breaking it, as long as you keep your finger wet,” Johnson explained.

But how does he get a bubble around a kid without breaking it?

“You have a moat surrounding the kid,” said Johnson. “If it contains enough liquid and the air is right, I have a good chance to make a bubble that’ll last for about a minute.”

If you are wondering how Professor Plasterer maintained his bubble for almost a year, he kept it in an airtight container, with enough humidity to keep it moist.

“As long as you keep it from getting dry, it will last a long time,” Johnson said, motioning to a bubble in a jar next to his equipment last Friday. “That one is about two weeks old.”

In 2006, Johnson became the first Soap Bubble Artist in America to create a Bubble-Show with the help of public funding. Through the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an appropriation from the Rhode Island General Assembly, along with some private donors, it looks like Johnson is on his way to a career in bubbles.

“I have been busy enough for this to be my full-time work,” he said. “There are probably 10 or 15 bubble artists in the world who work at it full-time. They come from all over the world. We even get together sometimes.”

I can’t imagine what they talk about.

In any event, it won’t be long until we have to forget all about blowing bubbles and idly pass time.

For information about Keith Michael Johnson’s programs, call toll free at 1-800-730-6676. His Fax is 1-866-247-7073, or visit www.keithmichaeljohnson.com.