Peg Carlson-Hoffman + Chuck Hoffman

Edges, boundaries and intersections have been at the heart of our artistic expression for 20 years. We see boundaries and edges not as divisions, but as places that hold tension and allow something new to rise from struggle. Tension is a place where we sense the spirit moving and creating within and through each of us.  

Through our art and workshops, we create a space for community, spirituality and social change. In the face of current world issues, and with our planet earth in profound peril, we cultivate places where creativity, dialogue and hospitality can begin to nurture seeds of understanding.

Our time spent in places where physical walls divide communities has been particularly formative. Our experience in Belfast, Northern Ireland, over the years is at the core of our inspiration and call to work and live in community.

Most recently, as Executive Directors of Holden Village, we have lived our life on the boundary of the wilderness frontier. Holden is a remote off-the-grid spiritual community deep within the forest of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Through our experiences we have come to believe deeply in re-formation: re-forming our relationship with the earth, with each other, and with the divine.

Peg Carlson-Hoffman + Chuck Hoffman are the former Executive Directors of Holden Village, a remote wilderness education and renewal community in the wilderness of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.

Peg is a painter, lettering artist and designer. She is a former Creative Director and product developer for Hallmark Cards.

Chuck, a painter and designer, is a former Associate Creative Director for the Walt Disney Company. He received the Art & Innovation Fellowship and the St. Paul Interfaith Scholarship Award from Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where Chuck completed his MA in Art & Theology.

Our earth’s atmosphere is now at the highest levels of CO2 in over 800,000 years.

The Climate Crisis is caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels that pump carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) into our Earth’s atmosphere. Solar energy absorbed at the Earth’s surface is radiated back into the atmosphere as heat. As the heat makes its way through the atmosphere and back into space, GHGs both absorb and radiate the heat back to the Earth’s surface. As global temperatures increase, coastal communities, which account for 50% of the world’s population, face increasing threat from rising sea levels and storm surges. Extreme weather of droughts, hurricanes, flooding and massive fires are becoming common place. The Climate Crisis is irreparably altering habitats, reducing the availability of drinking water, disrupting crop production, social inequality, and driving between 20-30% of the Earth’s species into extinction.

A word about Genesis+Art impact on the environment + carbon neutral + giving back.

With every purchase, you make the earth a better place. Through our partnerships with non-profits and other stewards of the planet, we’re planting trees, fighting climate change and working for social justice by donating 10% of your purchase.

restore and reforest
Reforestation involves the intentional planting of trees in woodlands that have been destroyed quite often by human interference. Maintaining biodiversity is critical in restoring forests. Different seedlings from the natural habitat are used to regenerate the original forest. Not only does it help rebuild forests to their once healthy ecosystem, it also plays an important role in mitigating global warming, since forests facilitate biosequestration of atmospheric CO2.

a word about our travel, the environment and carbon neutral
We feel our time on the boundaries and of wilderness has born witness to its peril and its beauty. We derive our inspiration for our art, writings and reflections of the earth has heightened our awareness of wonder and seeing nature as the original sacred text. We find our adventures going beyond the known to explore these landscapes requires travel. With carbon offsets, we can counteract our personal carbon footprint by helping build clean energy and carbon-reducing projects. To offset this impact, we purchase 2% carbon offset credits by calculating usage and impact on Native and support fighting climate change and social injustice.

The earth and our more-than-human world is our priority as we work to make a positive impact and a net negative when it comes to emissions.

As long as we remain faithful to creating art motivated by living in the present, the art, when art does come, will act as a light that illumines not only the existential darkness, but also the world in which we live.