Some people find comfort blending into the crowd. Others like to stand out. Then there is the Bubbleman, a.k.a. Gary Golightly, and he loves to stand out -- outside and make bubbles.

This one-of-a-kind Ballard resident has the challenging chore of putting smiles on kids’ faces while launching soap into the air. He is the Santa Claus of summer, but his beard is purple. His sleigh, a purple Toyota van with xylophone and drumsticks attached, and license plate DOTCALM.

In his sack are oversized plastic tennis racquets, hoops and other props to dunk into his bucket of soapy water. His tools of the trade yield bubbles tiny and huge.

“When I was growing up I said I wanted to do what nobody else is doing for a living,” recalled Golightly, 56, who renamed himself after Audrey Hepburn’s character from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” when she died.

He was raised in Boston with five younger sisters by his mother. He never knew who his father was. His mother is gone, but was proud he became a bubble-maker, not a troublemaker.

“I was just starting out making bubbles when my mother was dying,” said Golightly. “I drove from Florida back to Boston to see her at the hospital. I asked them if I could put on a little bubble show on their front lawn for my mom and some of the other patients and they said yes. After the show she said, ‘Well you’re making people happy and that’s how I raised you.’ She died not long after that.”

He earned his art and teaching degrees at University of Massachusetts College of Art. While he gets the occasional out-of-state gig, he prefers to ply his trade in Seattle because, he said, “Here it’s cool. It’s calm. It’s cloudy. Sun evaporates the bubbles. It’s like tai chi, and the bubbles just go flying off. It’s wonderful.”

While he misses family back home, he said that Bostonians don’t seem to be interested in his bubbles.

“They are more conservative than here even though they have the Kennedys and seem to be leftwing,” he said. “And drivers don’t stop honking.”

This time of year his bubble business slows down and he is spending his free time creating artwork. His new medium? Six-pack rings. He has two, 50-gallon drums filled with rings, plus a few boxes full stored in his spacious, orderly basement apartment.

His source?

“The Sunset Tavern bartenders saved them for me,” he said. “Then I got this thought- Vending machine ‘filler upper guys.’ I called a vending company and a guy said he appreciated that the Bubbleman entertains kids and saved thousands for me.”

He configures the rings into pagoda-shaped chandeliers, fastening them together with ties and spray-painting them. He is currently seeking a gallery to display his recycled art creations, some over seven feet tall, or wide, depending on how you look at them.

They are designed to hang like a birdcage, but in a pinch they can be utilized as bubble-makers if dunked into Dawn or Joy, he said. They also collapse relatively flat.

“Zip ties changed my life,” said Golightly. “I used staples at first. Staples weren’t good. They rusted.”

His chandeliers may make a strong visual statement, but also a political one similar to his “cacophony of cups” model.

He explained, “I show the kids my sphere of over 300 plastic cups, a model of a bubble with an earth ball inside.

“I tell all the children look inside and I ask, ‘What do you see?’ They say, ‘Mother Earth.’ I say, “Look what we’ve done to Mother Earth. We’ve covered it in ‘clone-doe-miniums,’ cell phone towers, and drastic plastic.’”

Golightly said he once lived on a commune of ‘self-healers’ where he was a counselor. Some there were kids with drug problems and other issues. But he said he learned something too, how to deep-breath, and claims he became more relaxed and happy as a result.

“I was taught by someone I really trusted, a cool guy with thick glasses, an astrologer, gardener and herbologist. He really taught me how to breathe.

“I take 11 deep breaths through my nose at the start of my show,” he said. “We are so under-breathed we are destroying the whole (breathing) process.”

Breathing awareness, like most things in Golightly’s life, ties into bubbles.

“The only way you can hold your breath is in a bubble,” he said. “It’s right there. A bubble is perfect. It’s not permanent. But either are we.”

To book the Bubbleman or learn more about him, go to: www.bubbleman.com.