His mother saith unto the servants,
whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
John 2:5

This piece takes its name from Christ’s first recorded miracle: the transformation of water into wine at a wedding in Cana. It is a miracle often remembered for its graciousness, but beneath the surface lies a deeper mystery—a reordering of matter. The Savior did not mix ingredients or perform sleight of hand. He commanded the elements, and they obeyed.

The water was stored in large stone vessels, likely clay hardened by fire. Pure water contains only hydrogen and oxygen, but the vessel, the air, and trace elements in both held the essential building blocks of more complex compounds—carbon, nitrogen, and more. All the necessary atoms were already present. The miracle, then, was not creation ex nihilo, but transformation—an act of elemental reorganization.

By the same token, an egg contains the same chemistry found in Jupiter. In vastly different quantities, yes—but all the materials are there. The artwork invites us to consider: if the building blocks are shared, what separates an egg from a planet? The answer is not matter, but organization.

For centuries, alchemists dreamed of turning lead into gold. Their work was mystical, but not wholly misguided. Lead and gold differ by just three protons in their atomic nuclei—lead has 82, gold has 79.

In principle, lead can be transmuted into gold by stripping away three protons (and a few neutrons), but doing so requires immense force. Such transformations occur naturally in the cores of stars or in the violence of a supernova, where temperatures and pressures are so vast that they force nuclei to fuse or decay. Modern physics can replicate these conditions in particle accelerators by propelling lead atoms at around 99.999993% of the speed of light.

The alchemists were right to believe in transformation. It was not the dream that erred—but the means. The key insight remains: matter is not fixed. It is fluid, under the right laws.

Einstein once said, God does not play dice, rejecting the idea of randomness at the heart of quantum theory.

He was wrong about that. But this much is true: God does not play magic. In Latter-day Saint belief, He works through the power of the priesthood within the bounds of eternal laws. His miracles are not exceptions to reality, but revelations of a higher order that we do not yet fully grasp.

The artwork underscores a profound truth: the universe is not made of separate kinds of matter, but of the same matter arranged in different ways.

Transformation is always possible—if not by man, then by his Maker.