Hike You! at RevHaus

Photographer Ryan Davis and poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg have spent more than six years exploring Rockford one walk at a time. Beginning near the city’s geographic center, each walk followed a different direction through familiar streets, forgotten places and overlooked corners.

Hike You! brings their photographs and haiku together in 24 illustrated pieces, revealing the strange, mysterious and occasionally magical Rockford hidden inside the everyday.

Presented at RevHaus during Fall ArtScene 2026, the exhibition also offers a preview of the forthcoming book, Hike You!: Six Years of Photographs and Haiku from the Heart of Rockford.

RevHaus is a creative automotive space where craftsmanship, design and art come together.

Alongside Hike You!, visitors can see reclaimed-metal and wood artwork by Oscar Pagles of Foraged and metalwork by Shayne Pagles of VinGogh, LLC. Live metalworking and woodworking demonstrations will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the transformation of raw, reclaimed and everyday materials into art.

RevHaus, LLC
1023 Harlem Road
Machesney Park, Illinois 61115

Friday, October 2: 5:00–9:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 3: 4:00–9:00 p.m.

Admission is free. Everyone is welcome.

A bike that had been thrown into the Rock River emerges from the depths outside the Rockford Register Star building.

Resurfacing

a little mud in my

gears won't make me forget my

heart is the motor

Beattie Park

your souls raise the soil

of May Day like the breast of

Mother Earth herself

Magnet Fishing At the Fordham Dam

With Ryan Davis

dragging rock bottom

we reel in rusty remnants

of the Screw City

Midway

lost somewhere between

now and then, a harsh reminder

the show always ends

Rockford Haiku poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg

About Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a Rockford poet, publisher, and co-founder of Wolf Twin Books. Since first appearing nationally in Exquisite Corpse in 1990, his work has been published in more than 250 literary journals, magazines, and anthologies.

Since turning his attention to haiku in 2020, his poems have appeared in many of the genre's leading international publications, including Modern Haiku, The Heron's Nest, Presence, The Mainichi (Japan), Haiku Canada Review, Wales Haiku Journal, and numerous others.

His 2026 collection, Vanished Roads, explores grief, memory, and the Midwestern landscape through 104 haiku inspired by years of walking the forests, rivers, and neighborhoods of northern Illinois. The book has been reviewed internationally and is indexed by The Haiku Foundation.

Before co-founding Wolf Twin Books with his partner, Tré, Vaultonburg spent more than two decades operating Zombie Logic Press, where he published the early work of numerous Rockford writers and helped bring regional voices to a wider audience.

The Rockford Haiku Hike reflects his belief that paying closer attention to familiar places can transform the way we experience our own community.

The historic Faust Landmark Hotel and Midway Theater in a shroud of luminous December fog. Photo by Ryan Davis.

The historic Faust Landmark Hotel and Midway Theater in Downtown Rockford shrouded by luminous December fog. This and other photo and haiku collaborations created over the six years of their Rockford Haiku hikes will be published in a book titled Hike You!: Six Years of Photographs and Haiku from the Heart of Rockford, and individual pieces will be exhibited at Spring Art Scene in 2026.