While walking around Art Murmur in Oakland I came across this man. His booth had a bunch of prints on black paper of African figures in gold in brilliant motion (see behind him). I asked him, “How do you make these?”

“I use bleach on museum quality paper so it last 100 years. The best paper is actually just cardboard paper you would use in high school. It reacts with the bleach better.”

“I’ve never seen this technique before. How did you discover it?”

“I’ve got 2 stories I tell people, I’ll tell you the real one first. I was working on a watercolor painting and was trying to get a certain part of the painting white. The paint wasn’t doing the job and a friend suggested I bleach the paper…so I tried it. Then I got a bunch of different colors of paper to see what would happen, and they all turned gold. The black paper had the best contrast so I decided to work with that.”

“Very cool. So do you put a stencil down and put the bleach around the stencil?”

“No, I use a brush and dot, dot, dot until it has that universal feel. Most if those have that, and that because I want them all to have a universal approval. I want you to look at these and say, ‘These are children of the universe.’ ”

“What awakened your cosmic consciousness?”

“I’m just spiritual in nature. There’s so much we’ve had to endure, it’s almost like we’re destined to survive. Like we’re connected to something more powerful than we are, and to me that can only be the universe.”

“I’m with you. I always see the universe.”

“Yeah, this style is deliberate. I think in universal terms. It comes from bible reading, and bible rejection, the analytics of Confucius, the Talmud, all these things. Trying to find some sort of thing that made sense. I feel like we’re all made from water, we all have that star stuff in us. Maybe we are The Universe. Let it shine, let it shine.”

“That’s very inspiring. Thank you.”

“Well it’s a good question. What about you?”

“I’m definitely on my own quest. I do a street photography project and I try to put cosmic energy into my pictures. When you look at your stuff they definitely seem cosmic, I try to showcase that cosmic spark in the eyes of people you pass on the street everyday. There’s so much cellular energy that passes through the eyes.”

“There really is something to the idea of the eyes being the mirror to the soul. Our eyes delight on this moveable feast. Devouring and feeding off of what it sees, putting that into your body and soul. Whatever you call soul. Now that I think about it, that’s the last thing that leaves the body. When someone’s dying, and you see their eyes glaze over, that’s when you know it’s over.”