Artist Michael Grab is a master of rock balancing – he can pile them up in all sorts of gravity-defying formations, and believe it or not, there’s no glue involved.
Michael calls his art a ‘contemplative stone arrangement’ that involves ‘patience, adaptation, slow-breathing, steady hands and a plethora of other practiced skills’. His project, called ‘Gravity Glue’, has him balancing rocks of all shapes and capturing the impossible-looking structures on camera.
“I began balancing rocks through somewhat of a whim in the summer of 2008 while exploring Boulder Creek in Boulder, CO, USA,” he says. “Since then, simple curiosity has evolved into a prolific creative passion, and daily meditative practice.” He claim that his creations have a unique effect on himself and others – they inspire a sense of magic and peace, a sense that anything is possible.
According to Michael, the balancing technique requires a minimum of three contact points. While every rock is covered with several indentations that could serve as contact points, his job is to find the ‘finest point balances’ by paying close attention to ‘vibrations’. He does this by ‘getting to know’ the rocks, and his intuition and experience come in handy while trying to locate these particular points of balance.
“The most fundamental element of balancing in a physical sense is finding some kind of ‘tripod’ for the rock to stand on. I’m basically feeling the vibrations of the rocks as they kind of roll over one another,” he explained. “Whenever it rolls over one of those notches, it kind of clicks or locks until you really can’t go anywhere else.”
The idea of rocks simply ‘clicking’ together like lego blocks sounds too fantastic to be true, but that’s what makes it more fun for Michael. “When somebody sees something they think is impossible, it has a really interesting impact on the person’s mind as they try to argue with their senses,” he said.
Michael uses his rock balancing skill as a performance art – he creates unique rock formations in front of spectators, who are simply amazed by what he can do. “Mystical”, “magical”, and “impossible” are some words people have used to describe his work. And Michael likes to add a bit of mischief to his performance as well: “I just go up and tap one in the middle and it just collapses. And everyone is like [gasp!] So I just like, get down, start making it again. Make it a tiny bit different.”
Michael guesses that he might be one of only five professional rock balancers in the world. He said that he’s passionate about it because it is a ‘fun way to relax, release stress, play, create, learn’. He also described it as a ‘fairly involved meditative practice, which seems to reveal very personal, and sometimes profound insights to the seasoned practitioner’.
“There is nothing easy about it,” he admitted. “It can frustrate me to my limits, and then I learn. Or it can reveal magic beyond words, and I learn. Sometimes the rock wins, but most of the time I win.”
You cancheck out more pictures of his spectacular work at his website: gravityglue.com
Photos: Gravity Glue/Facebook
