The extremes of Alma’s pain and joy are profound, but each of us faces great contrasts throughout our lives. In her nightscape painting, Leslie Graff writes, “16th Floor is a piece which really explores dualities, inside and outside, containment and expansion, light and dark, the individual and the collective, static and motion.”

From the artist: “I’ve been working on a symbolic interpretation of Alma’s discourse on the faith in Alma 32. It’s titled seed/flower/tree/fruit. This is a 4-paneled image, each panel representing one of the following: the seed, the flower, the tree, and the fruit. Behind each of these symbols are the ancient, sacred geometries of the seed of life, the flower of life, and the tree of life.

What is prayer for? Alma’s condemnation of the Zoramites’ public prayers contrasts the experience that many of us have with prayer as private, devotional communication. Artists sometimes consider the creation of work as an extended dialogue with deity.

On the Blackfeet Reservation of Browning, Montana, artist Ernest Marceau, Jr. creates paintings that spring from his culture. The artist is interested in the depictions of Lamanites in the Book of Mormon. In his own work, he tries to reconcile contemporary life with the historical messages of the Book of Mormon.

The painting, Violines sobre mesa, is from a series of paintings by Julio Ciccio of string instruments. A musical instrument’s ultimate purpose is manifest when an artist picks it up and plays. Alma and the sons of Mosiah are told by the Lord, “I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls (Alma 17:11). Are you an instrument?