Hold to the Rod
Ryan McGowan Muldowney
- Medium
United States
ca. 2019
Oil on panel
“I am interested in how the scriptures often talk about the Saints as ‘laborers’ in the kingdom. There is something in honest, grueling, physical labor that reminds us of our duty to o similarly ‘work out our own salvation’ (Philippians 2:12),” said Muldowney. The foundry worker in particular offers a useful metaphor for the artist, as “the Lord refines his people in ‘the furnace of affliction’ (1 Nephi 20:10) [and in] ‘mists of darkness’ (1 Nephi 8:23).” And in this tumultuous refinement, the laborer holds “the rod of iron” (1 Nephi 8:24) and “toils his way patiently toward an unseen tree of life.”