As a printmaker one of the most basic techniques I had to learn was how to make a relief image. Unlike drawing or painting where a medium is added to the surface of paper or canvas to create what our eyes will later perceive, relief images are created by removing all the excess material around the desired image. Often gouges and other knives will take nearly everything from a surface to reveal the artist's vision for an image hidden within the wood or linoleum block.

My experience of the Covid-19 pandemic felt a lot like what a linoleum or wood block must feel like- so many routines, relationships, places, people, and ways of experiencing the world were stripped away from me ... many never to return. Our experiences have been varied, but few of us have not had parts of ourselves changed forever or exposed to through harsh circumstances like the remaining image in a relief print.

This show is meant to remind us that though our experiences were varied, they need not remain isolated. The mediums used to create the art pieces are as varied as the individuals and communities that created them and the experiences they seek to embody or express. Though varied they are also meant to remind us that our individual experiences and insights are always to be shared with the larger community. The theologian Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu reminds us:

"For those of us concerned with questions of ultimate meaning- the theologically minded- the arts present themselves as testimonies, material instances of God's continuing relationship with God's creation. Revelation, in order to be known by us, must happen in our midst and in our world, and a renewed understanding of the power of revelatory symbols makes us aware of revelatory moments (for us and for those who came before us)." 1

Here we humbly present testimonies of God's continuing revelatory work here in southern Colorado's Pueblo Presbytery in these last few "missing years."

Collin Downing Pastor of the Wayfarers Chapel

Bob Leivers Executive Presbyter of the Pueblo Presbytery

1 Gonzalez-Andrieu, Cecilia. Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012. p 24