He completed three commissions while in West Virginia. First was a brass sculpture-fountain in 1966 for the FMC Inorganic Chemical Company for an open-air atrium garden in their new building on the riverbank in South Charleston. Morris Harvey College commissioned two large brass sculptures in 1967 for permanent installation on the campus. This was followed in 1968 by a brass sculpture for the entrance to the newly remodeled Lewis Chevrolet dealership in Beckley.

He met William Endres in early 1968, a businessman enrolled in an art appreciation class he taught at Sunrise. Endres recalled that Gibson “had been doing wood sculpture and was trying to switch to working with metals.” Since Endres had established the West Virginia division of the mechanical contracting business Dougherty Co., Inc., he thought he might be able to help.

Endres was one of several mentors and patrons over the years, and he offered Gibson the key to his metal shop facilities in Kanawha City to work on his sculpture. With unlimited access to materials and equipment he would create many sculptures there, such as the ‘Turtle’ and the Lewis Chevrolet sculpture. He also refined his welding skills by working with many different metals.

He produced over 70 works through 1975-1979, presented two solo exhibitions, and completed two major commissions. The first commission was a welded brass fountain in 1975 for the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens in Nashville, TN. In 1976, the Huntington, WV Junior League Garden Club commissioned the outdoor ‘Portal’ sculpture for the entrance to the Huntington Galleries Bird Walk nature trail.

Three dominant motifs in his early work were female figures, birds, and metaphysical reflectors. His birds were whimsical bird forms that often blended some elements of the human figure. He explained that metaphysical reflectors represented “that fine line or path between that which is physical and metaphysical as experienced by me.”

He experimented in the early 1980s with sculptures that could function as a table in an office or dining room. He said that “a table may be made with the same kind of personal, subjective idea in mind that a piece of sculpture is, but it’s not going to be looked at in the same way.” One the best examples is the conference table for the Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, which represented his work for over 30 years.

The 1982 World’s Fair would provide an invitation to show his larger sculptures in an expansive outdoor exhibition. Invitations to other outdoor sculpture tours would follow including Walters State Community College, the University of Tennessee, and Cleveland State Community College.

The most significant commission of this period was the sculpture for MTSU’s Diamond (75th) Anniversary Celebration in 1986, ‘Rites of Passage.’ He said: “The idea that went into my latest work Rites of Passage has been the major catalyst in my work lately. The idea of a cycle – birth, life, death. The human animal always looks for repetition, something to have faith in.”

The motifs in his work evolved during the 1980s to include metaphysical reflectors, metaphysical writing machines, shamans, spirit traps, shadow catchers, rites of passage, and tables. Although birds slowly began to fade, the silhouette of a bird’s beak or other features continued to appear in reflectors and writing machines.

Asked about his work during this period, he said that “mythology is the dominant influence in my sculpture, specifically my focus is on the variety in repetition and continuation of stories, symbols, and numbers.” In letters to a friend in 1994 and 1996, he describes ‘Little Ferry Boat IV (Northern Line)’ as “nine forms on a boat-like structure” arranged as “4-3-2, i.e., 432” The motif of spiritual passage of seven or nine forms was also depicted by forms on a cart with wheels and appears in sculptures such as Hell on Wheels II.

In the summer of 1994, the University of Charleston in West Virginia requested drawings for an outdoor sculpture for the new Clay Tower Building on the Kanawha River side of the Geary Student Union. The university commissioned the stainless-steel sculpture entitled ‘Reflection of Memories,’ installed at the Clay Tower Building in 1997. This was the last major commission before retiring in 1999, after 29 years at MTSU.

Many of his figurative painted wood sculptures during this period were inspired by important mentors and patrons in his life that helped him grow as an artist. For example, in 2002 he dedicated an intricate painted wood sculpture to Bill Endres, entitled ‘William of Doughtery.’ He occasionally returned to the motif of ladies wearing hats in colorful wood sculptures such as ‘Virginia Gianino’ in 2001. In 2005-2006, he also experimented with a series of welded steel sculptures painted in vivid powder- coated colors including the red raspberry ‘Fragment of the Imagination’.

One of the last sculptures he made in 2017 was titled ‘4:14 St. James Place’ and named for the scripture James 4:14. This was a fitting title to anticipate his own final rite of passage. He died August 13, 2018, at the age of 81 from a sudden illness.