Mother Earth and the Three Sisters.

Small communities monitor the lives of their members based on long established traditions. It's the unspoken and unwritten community customs that guide and limit human behavior. It's these habits that also define the acceptable or preferred gender roles. As women who were expected to always be the happy homemaker know all too well, breaking folk or traditional attitudes and role expectations is not easy. Breaking the molds for men can be tough too.

In my neighborhood,or more specifically on my street, tending to the lawn and garden has traditionally been the role of women. Married men don't cut grass, and most certainly do not grow flowers. For the past twenty-five years, my grass stained sneakers and green thumb have been shockingly out of place in my neighborhood. But I refuse to submit to neighborhood pressure. I love growing flowers, and venting my frustrations behind the roar of a power mower is a very private affair. And since the guy who just moved next door has joined me in this resistance to neighborhood pressure, I don't feel quite so out of place.

Admittedly, the distinctive roles of men and women can and do vary considerably from place to place and time to time. But historically, the lawn and garden, the areas closest to the home, seem to be more the turf of women, while field, stream, and forest, the more expansive areas leading away from the home, seem to be thought of as the landscapes for men to explore.

Contact with Mother Earth, whether in the expanse of the field or the confines of the kitchen garden, is an essential part of our humanness. All of us are connected to the ecology of the planet. Even those who are not interested in growing things are affected when divorced from the cycle of rest, rejuvenation, and fulfillment, the orderly progression of the seasons, For me, gardening is relaxing. But I grew up taking gardens for granted. I learned at an early age that gardening, or tending to the Three Sisters, is an important and ancient way of being part of the circle of life. If we take care of the Three Sisters, corn, beans, and squash, they will take care of us. I did not learn that taking care of the Three Sisters or tending a flower bed was strictly women's work. Neither did Monet. He had a passion for gardens, he grew flowers, and from these beds of flowers he created paintings. I only create compost.

Perhaps keeping the circle of life strong is important to artists. Georgia O'Keeffe, whose landscape of Red Hills and Bones is featured in this issue, was also an avid gardener. She loved to tend the flowers and vegetable gardens outside her adobe-brick studio in New Mexico. She created hundreds of flower paintings in colorful detail -- tulips, irises, calla lilies, and orchids were some of her favorites. A pioneer feminist long before the equality of women was a popular view, O'Keeffe was described by critics as a feminist painter because of her focus on flowers, mountains, and valleys that evoked the shape of the female body. O'Keeffe strongly disagreed with critics' interpretations and denied that her symbolism and focus on nature were related to feminism. Even the art world tries to monitor the lives of its members in regard to contacts with the natural world.

Children are gardeners at heart. they have a natural enthusiasm for working with plants. Many years ago, units of study on gardens and the designing of a garden plot were a part of the school art program. There are still some classroom teachers today who get students involved in tending a school garden plot and keeping a garden journal. Unfortunately, few today consider such an activity to be an important aspect of art education. Selfishly holding on to the notion that art education should prepare us for richer contacts with Mother Earth and the Three Sisters, we decided to devote this issue to those aspects of the art program that engage students in contacts with nature.