We were lucky to catch up with Michael Grab recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I quit my regular job and financial security to pursue my creative passion

Michael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a professional land artist that specializes in the practice of balancing rocks in very precarious and impossible looking ways. I discovered the practice accidentally while hanging out at Boulder creek in Boulder, CO USA in the summer of 2008. It became an instant passion and I began practicing during all my free time, until 2012 when I decided I did not have enough time for a regular job anymore, while was also starting to get international recognition for my balancing work and skills, so I quite the regular job to focus solely on the art. Shortly after, I began having my stone balance videos go viral on social media, which led to clients around the world starting to offer me live performance and workshop gigs, around mostly Europe and Asia. So they would generally fly me in to perform live on stages for high profile formal events, such as real estate showcases, design conventions, the world economic forum, commercials, movie sets, and other corporate / private events. I also began performing with various electronic music and arts festivals around the world, because the work is typically quite mind bending and really challenges people’s sense of possibility. What sets my work apart is the extreme technical level I’ve cultivated through obsessive practice and passion. And most of my practice has happened out in the open, often attracting large spontaneous audiences, so performing the skill live is very natural to me. Another important element of my work is the way major role it has played in inspiring and shaping a global movement of stone balancing art. Additionally, Ive also cultivated the photograpgic and cinematic skills to record my work professionally, so sometimes clients will hire me to come to their property and create a series of work and record it to show off their landscapes and promote their property or business. For example a resort in Turkey brought me in for 2 weeks and had me create every day along their beaches, and then licensed the photography for their marketing purposes.

AS far as my work or brand, I hold myself to an extreme technical level and visual aesthetic that few if any can match worldwide. but more importantly, the power of my work is through its temporal nature and it’s ability to make people stop and contemplate / meditate on a variety of often philosophical subjects and metaphors, as BALANCE is such an important condition and often goal in life and survival.

Another very important element of my work is this ability to integrate and work WITH nature to get into creative flow states that often spiral into some form of transcendental beauty or magic. And it holds meditation, contemplation, practice, patience, and reverence of Nature at the core of its process.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I did not really try to build an audience on social media. I was just passionate about creating these sculptures and kept practicing and pushing myself with a sense of curiosity, and then posting photos and videos of my progress. eventually international media picked it up and started spreading my social media pages. My best advice is to just create what you feel you must, and if the passion is there and willingness to keep practicing and challenging myself regularly, then I think the audience will tend to form naturally if the quality or skill is highly developed.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

losing myself in the process of obsessive creation. and in particular my work with nature, which is inherently impossible to control, thus the process of integrating with its processes has a way of dissolving any kind of cognitive separation we tend to create between ourselves and nature. it is a pure collaborative effort with raw nature.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gravityglue.com
• Instagram: @gravityglue
• Facebook: facebook.com/gravityglue
• Twitter: @gravityglue
• Youtube: youtube.com/gravityglue
• Other: vimeo.com/gravityglue