Last week Peter Juhl was busy hanging photographs of his unique “rock balancing” art in the Cook County courthouse. The unique pictures are on the main floor and demonstrate both his photographic skills and his ability to find the center of gravity and balance points to objects where most wouldn’t think one exists.
Peter Juhl does something that looks impossible and makes it possible. He takes rocks of all shapes and sizes and balances them on top of each other in what looks like totally incongruous ways. He says he uses balance points and friction to make things that, when they are finished, look like they are straight out of science fiction.
And yet somehow his Picasso-like sculptures stand. At least for a few seconds anyway. They aren’t meant to be permanent. A big wave, a big gust of wind, and he has to begin again. None of it bothers him, he says.
When he’s on the shore he’s in nature’s playground with an unimaginable amount of material (rocks) to work with. He said he feels like a kid on the beach like he was more than 20 years ago when he discovered he had a knack for balancing stones on top of each other, something he learned how to do when he was on a family vacation in Schroeder.
Juhl has taken that talent and written a book called Center of Gravity: A Guide to the Practice of Rock Balancing. He also teaches a rock balancing class at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.
Balancing rocks, said Juhl, “Is a form of therapy for me.”
Photography, said Juhl, is harder for him.
“I really feel that balancing rocks is easier than taking pictures,” said Juhl on Friday, April 22 as he was hanging his beautiful pictures on the courthouse walls near the county administrator’s office.
Juhl’s sculptures are made of native Lake Superior beach rock. They are whimsical, colorful, fun and varied, and all are created on the shore of the big lake with Superior in the background. Juhl is sharing his pictures with Cook County courthouse visitors over the next year. If you like a picture you see, Juhl will sell you a copy of it. Each piece is marked with a price and information for ordering.
And if you want to try your hand at balancing rocks, there is always his book to order on Amazon.com.
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