((PKG)) BALANCING ROCK ARTIST
((TRT: 08:15))
((Topic Banner: Balancing Rock Artist))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: Boulder, Colorado))
((Main characters: 0 female; 1 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: Artist Michael Grab shows us how he creates his balanced rock sculptures.))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Grab
Artist))
Like right now, I'm kind of just gathering a selection of rocks that I'm not sure if I'll use or not, but they're just possibilities to work in different sequences with other rocks. Boulder Creek is a bit of a gravity glue graveyard because I'll often find rocks that I balanced like four or five years ago. Like this one, for example, is balanced in 2019. This one in 2018.
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((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
Well, when I first started doing this, I just did it in the summer as a way to keep cool on hot days. But then I started to get fishing waders, and come out in the fall, and then the winter,
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
and started noticing that there's all these different elements at play. Like the funnest thing about working in the winter is being able to splash water on this, and the whole thing starts to freeze and like gets icicles and things like that. So, there's just a very dynamic kind of land art element depending on the season. Generally, I push myself to get out here every day or as much as I can all throughout the year, but it also just depends where I am. Also, I'm not always like in a freezing environment in the winter, so…
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
I call my work Gravity Glue, and that name came from just being at the creek here and people stopping with some kind of curiosity to the structures I'm building
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
and asking if they're glued. So, I decided Gravity Glue is a good name because gravity is the only glue that holds it together. ((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Grab
Artist))
So I kind of, like I put this base rock here in this orientation because it's really heavy, just because it has, I don't know, a series of notches on this top face that can work in different ways to start a balance. That can maybe start with something like this, like just something extremely basic. It's kind of the first thing I teach in workshops, is just balancing a single rock on a tip.
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
((Michael Grab
Artist))
The impermanent nature of it is part of the power and the beauty of the art form, the fact that it doesn't last. It's like any kind of beautiful experience that you have. Like it’s power comes from it’s temporary nature, but it also creates space for a different art form, which is the photography and the videography of recording it and kind of crystallizing it in this visual medium.
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
So in that sense, it is a way of making it last forever. So, I can keep kind of a portfolio and a library of all the stuff I've created. But in the real world where it's created, it only lasts for a short time.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Grab
Artist))
Going to make something that has legs. And this is working with some elements that I was using before in a previous structure a couple of weeks ago. Like I'm trying to kind of attach or connect these rocks in certain ways where I can still feel that stability wherever I want to put a new rock. So like right here, I could probably just stand on it and it'll support me.
((Michael Grab
Artist))
Well, I just…I started rock balancing basically by accident, just hanging out at the creek during August of 2008, and was hanging out with a friend, and just kind of in the middle of a psychedelic experience looking for certain rocks. We were just sitting in the creek and moving rocks around, and eventually we had piles of rocks. Eventually, we just stopped looking for a certain rocks and just started balancing them.
((NATS))
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
Since my work started getting traction all around the world, I've started traveling a lot more to different environments, so I'll just kind of do it wherever I end up. As long as there's rocks and gravity, it just kind of works.
((Michael Grab
Artist))
And everything that's happening here is just physics essentially, and it does have a very explainable, tangible mechanics behind it. Like it is just using the edges of the rocks. Like I like to compare the rocks as kind of like a finger pointing at the moon, where the rocks are kind of the finger, and the rest of nature is the moon. So, like once this structure is standing, it has a way of channeling human attention to the surroundings going on all around.
((NATS))
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
And I think that's part of the magic of it all, is it tunes the human brain into actually really paying close attention to nature. Like land art in general is much more of this collaboration with nature or like working with it, not against it. And there's not really any way you can control nature. It’s just the nature of it, is to not be in control. So, it requires myself to surrender to some degree and basically fall in line with what nature is doing. Like a structure like this, for example, is not going to exist unless nature allows it
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
through whatever wind activity or weather is going on. Like, that's why I consider this a form of yoga or like stone yoga, because very literally, it's taking all these separate parts and balancing them in a certain way to become a unified whole. It's creating some kind of union, but also that's going on with myself, this sense of separate itself from nature. It's kind of like creating a yoga between myself and the natural environment. So, like when I'm building, and working with these vibrations, and tuning into the moment, and finally ending up at this zero point where it's all balanced, and I can let go, that zero point is where I can't really distinguish between myself and nature. It's like a very unified moment. My art was this huge leap into the unknown. For anyone that might be scared to take a leap into the unknown, I would say, you really have to trust your instinct and what your heart is telling you,
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
and that may still end up in a situation that might not work, but it might. I guess, I want to translate some of what I feel to other people, which is just kind of this sense of peace and magic.
((Courtesy: Michael Grab))
((NATS))