Click Here for links to other rock balancing web sites and articles
An Article I wrote
Sculpture in the Moment - An article I wrote this winter. Know any place I can get this published?
Questions and Answers
When I balance rocks in public, I get a lot of questions, from the smug:
"Don't you know that's going to fall down the minute somebody comes along and touches it?"
...to the insightful:
"Do you focus more on planning what you want to build and then choosing the right rocks, or do you just take random rocks and see what you can come up with, like jazz?"
...to the bizarre:
"Are you a geologist, or from outer space?"
Here are some answers to good questions that have to do with rock balancing:
Are those rocks actually balanced?
They are. There's nothing holding them up but good karma and high school physics. This question also comes in the form of a joke that every rock balancer hears far too often, which goes something like "What kind of glue are you using?" I usually counter that with: "If I could invent an invisible, instant glue strong enough to hold these ten-pound rocks together, I'd be a wealthy man. I'd probably be here balancing rocks every day instead of just evenings and weekends. But I still wouldn't be using any glue."
Is there a name for what you're doing?
Most practitioners of this art form call it rock balancing or stone balancing. The term rock stacking is used as well, but it seems to connote laying flat rocks on one another. Rock balancing seems a better name because it is more general.
Are you building a cairn, or an inuksuk?
While it involves placing rocks on rocks as they do, the rock balancing I do is very different from these forms. Cairns are intended to endure for years or even centuries, marking a particular spot on earth, like a trail, a summit, or a grave. The life of a balanced rock sculpture on the other hand, is measured in minutes, maybe hours under the best of conditions. The goal of the balance artist is to create a thing that, using small contact points and counterbalance, comes as near as possible to falling down, but does not, lasting long enough to be enjoyed. In other words, a sturdy balanced rock sculpture is a boring balanced rock sculpture.
How long did it take to build?
If a sculpture takes more than a few minutes, it probably means you should change strategies or try some different rocks. Getting fixated on achieving a certain configuration is a good way to stifle the creative process. Some of the best sculptures are created quickly and without too much thought, often after abandoning a dead end effort and starting fresh.
What makes them stay like that?
The physics underlying this enterprise is simple: The place where each rock rests on the rock below is called a contact. The rock balancer chooses each contact, looking for a small depression, bubble, or chip in one of the rocks. The curve of the other rock nestles into this depression. There must be three points around the edge of this depression at which the rocks are actually touching, forming a small triangle. The combined center of gravity of the rock or rocks above must be directly above the tiny triangle that forms each contact. There must also be enough friction at the contacts to prevent the rocks from sliding off one another. The smaller and further from horizontal the contacts, the better the sculpture. That's all there is to it.