Where Wonder Lives
Soul Totems
Chuck Hoffman + Peg Carlson-Hoffman
2021 Acrylic on milled wood
© Genesis+Art
Hoffman, Minnesota
On this Earth Day, Peg and I continue to find ourselves on the rural landscape of western Minnesota. Recent days have been cold and bright as we continue to explore the wetlands and the rolling farmland. We have been enchanted by the flocks of white pelicans on their migration. We have watched how these large groups of pelicans work together to herd fish into the shallows for easy feeding. We have drawn closer to this new landscape and its inspiration as we transition from living in the remote wilderness boundary deep within the Cascade Mountains.
Our new body of art has been influenced by the cold northern blues and brilliant white of snow as well as the umbers and ochres of the plowed earth. They are transitional pieces working on salvaged milled planks from the Wolverine Fire and painting typographic and archetypal shapes onto their porous, live edged surface. We feel they are spiritual landscapes.
Living in a time of an erasing landscape we find ourselves reflecting on the earth’s beauty and to wake people of the crisis. To address our climate crisis, we need to change culture. Though the world has had scientific facts available for years, our political culture has been slow to do much about our earths peril. We continue to poison our earth, the waterways that sustain life, we pollute the air we breathe and cut down our forests. Capitalism and its unrelenting quest to conquer nature for financial gain, has infected the earth. To fight this status quo of industrialism and its inherent pollution, we must change our way of thinking about nature and transform our culture. That’s where art has a place at the table of change.
Art will continue to play a significant role to awaken wonder. Art’s influence is more subjective and emotional, a complement to the objectivity of science. The arts can connect with the soul in a way facts and information cannot reach. Art is a powerful tool that affirms or challenges our cultural beliefs, values and our understanding of humanity’s relationship to each other and to the natural world. To awaken wonder and move us to dialogue, whether verbal or visual about why our Earth home is precious. And to fall in love with this more than human world.
Earth Prayers
We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land
To restore the waters
To refresh the air
We join with the earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas
To rejoice in the sunlight
To sing the song of the stars
We join with the earth and with each other.
To create the human community
To promote justice and peace
To remember our children
We join with the earth and with each other.
We join together as many and diverse expressions
of one loving mystery: for the healing of the
earth and the renewal of all life.
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