Goddess of Chocolates, Goddess of Disinfectants, Goddess of Hot Flashes – Susan Teague’s book, Goddesses Galore, You and Me, Sister, is filled with hilarious accounts of what it means to be a woman. Arguably, Teague herself is the goddess of murals, with her work on the walls of several floors of Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, and at the Bronson Cancer Center, as well as other hospitals and facilities. Teague painted at least one of these murals after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and given slim chances for survival.
“An exhibit of several works at the Cancer Center was birthed shortly after my last chemotherapy,” Teague says. “I had applied for an art grant through the Michigan Arts Council, and I was awarded it so that I could develop a 24-piece art exhibition called “Woman: Passion, Power, and Divinity.” It traveled around the United States to Hawaii, where it opened Women’s History Month in 2004. The body of work that’s at the Cancer Center was born because of the challenges and the internal questions that were posed to me while I was going through cancer. It was a reinventing of myself.”
Twenty-three years later, Teague is cancer-free, even though doctors initially gave her only a five -percent chance of survival for stage three ovarian cancer. Teague says art had therapeutic and healing value for her, whether in relieving stress or through self-expression.
“It is birthed from within, an idea or some soul-call from the spirit of who we are,” she says. “It has to come out, just like tears do when we cry.”
As for the book, Teague says that came about as her paintings and murals kept developing into more and more projects.
“Who is it to be an artist and a woman; it just kept developing,” Teague says. “So, after this 24-piece exhibition in Hawaii that was about a woman’s tribal spirit, her passion, and her power, was unexpectedly followed by another exhibition in 2010 called ‘Goddesses Galore.’ This is a playful but downright poignant exhibition of a celebration of Woman.”
That new series was transformed into a book. Much of the work showed where women were in the 1950s. Rather than painting, Teague used strips of colored tissue paper, inspired by stained glass windows, to create the images. She showed the works initially at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, but then put them together in her book, interspersed with short essays about womanhood.
Teague currently has two art exhibits in the Kalamazoo area open to the public. One is at the Portage District Library, titled “Goddesses: You and Me Sister.” The second is showing at the Bronson Cancer Center’s second floor.
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