This is the last in a series of three installments for Visitant featuring collaborative works from poet Dennis R. Kolakowski and artists Bruce Pipman and Charles W. “Bud” Gibbons, III. Biographies and back story below.

No Creek Up Here

Every beer
I ever swallowed
has been a fair investment
in this moment,
but Lord what I wouldn’t give
right now
for just one more sip
to wash the dust
of Pheasant Hill Road
off my tongue,

Bicycle tires
puff a trail of khaki cloud
behind
as acorns pluck my spokes
like spinning harps,

Summer dissipates
her green skin
into the scale of koi
without the water,
deer path ridges
flicker closer
to snow
and its sanctuary
with each shed leaf.

[image: "No Creek Up Here" | Bud Gibbons]

Bud Gibbons, Professor Emeritus at Penn State University, retired in 2015 after teaching art at the university level since 1973, Professor of Art at Penn State University and Salisbury State College in Maryland, Master of Fine Arts Mentor Program at Art Institute of Boston, Lesley University and the University of the Arts College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, PA, visiting Professor of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang, China and Normal University, Chan Chung, China.

Bud received MFA from Penn State University and BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, is represented at Agora Gallery, New York, NY, Art Advice Corporation Art Consultants, New York, NY, G Squared Gallery, Inc., Ligonier, PA and Garden Gallery, Londonderry, VT, as well as membership in Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Society of Artists, Easton Plein Air Society, Easton, Maryland and Ohio Plein Air Society. Bud has painted on location globally, received recognitions at international, national and local levels, and is included in private, corporate and museum collections worldwide.

Dennis R. Kolakowski has had poems with paintings recently accepted/published at Poetry Pacific, Scarlet Leaf Review, Indiana Voice Journal, Oddville Press, Zombie Logic Review, and Summerset Review; short stories, essays and poetry published in the 70s and 80s, and has been screenwriting over the past ten years. Memberships and work include Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association, Penn State engineer and facilities manager for Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center and Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.  Artist’s Statement: Assume nothing/consider everything, stand back and look close—when I remember in any aspect of life, it rewards. Sometimes even makes it to the page.

Dennis Kolakowski on the collaboration:

Bud Gibbons and I met 32 years ago through our wives and children and we’ve shared a wonderful path as one family ever since.  Bruce Pipman, having devoted his full time to painting after retiring from business in 2006, approached Bud in 2012 about showing his art in Bud’s gallery at Penn State New Kensington Campus, which turned out to be a huge success and ideal way for us to meet.  Unbeknownst to us, we’ve all lived within 5 miles of each other for the past 45 years and Bruce and I that close our entire lives—about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.  Today our joint endeavor of poetry with painting is the byproduct of our friendship; three men who have had observations over 204 collective years and just can’t keep it all to themselves—good clean fun.