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Kreg Yingst’s diverse contemporary and historical interests converge in his work with block printing. Each of his affecting pieces includes an amalgam of quotes, portraiture, symbolism, and story—and each has a radiant musical quality. Over the years Yingst’s prints have explored contemplative figures (St. Francis, the Desert Fathers, the psalmists), advocates for justice (John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr.), and musicians (Delta blues artists, Aretha Franklin, Freddie Mercury). Yingst has an unusual ability to push this ancient form into the modern world of contemporary expression.

After the phone call, the school chaplain and I hold hands and pray
for God to cover us with armor of light: two siblings, Katie and Kevin,

shot by their father as they slept. In the funeral home, I commend
their bodies to God as another priest signs a cross of oil

on their foreheads where they had once been marked in baptism
with the wound of cruciform love. The livid heavens are torn

apart, and I can see the two children at summer camp in the astonishing
fluorescence of the Youth Pavilion, paying more attention than required