Sue Krietzman,Goddess of Colour-Joy

"Don't wear beige, it could kill you"--Kreitzman

Now that I’m getting the hang of these newsletters, I’m thinking that every so often I’ll tell you about someone I have the pleasure of knowing, or of having met, someone who enhances life just by being there.

And I’ll start with Sue Kreitzman: food writer (former), fashion icon (present) and artist (always). She is also, unlike anyone else I can think of, a unique example of joyful aging. Adventurous aging. Zestful aging. As yesterday was my birthday, I’m feeling the need for inspiration into zestful aging.

Just being in near her is an experience in exhuberance. She dresses, surrounds herself with, and exhudes: vibrant colour. You might need sunglasses when Sue walks into your view. You might feel the sun shine all around your very being.

Her motto, "Dont wear beige, it might kill you" makes me laugh. I know it must be a reaction to the beige of her childhood, the greys and neutral palette of contemporary style-restraint. I know it must be, because I feel the same. Its like with food: you are going to cook/eat anyhow, why not make it delicious? You’re going to surround your self and your surroundings with colours anyhow, why not make them joyous?

A funny story shortly before the pandemic: Sue and I were both in NYC (her first hometown with London her second, present, hometown) and made a breakfast plan: my place, at a little table on the piazza in front of Bernard Baruch College, with bagels from the bagel place on the corner.

I had wanted Sue to see the inside of The Carlton Arms Hotel where I usually stay. Its next to the piazza, across from the bagel shop; open a curious looking door, climb up the stairs to the reception area and notice: everywhere you are looking the walls are telling you a story. They are painted, narrative, though not always clear in their messages.

And all the rooms are different, painted by different artists. If you’d like to paint a room there, talk to the crew. In the winter, when tourism is quiet, the artists gather. Free rent while you paint and create four walls of strange dreams; have fun, make friends, I mean: staying at the Carlton Arms is like staying nowhere else. Their motto says it all: “This ain’t no Holiday Inn”.

Sometimes I stay for several weeks and in that time, if its spring, I can manage to sprout a whole little starter garden of cucumbers, tomato plants, and nasturtiums, all to go to friends when I leave. Otherwise I like to sit at a window and watch the world go by on 23rd and 3rd Ave.

Entering The Carlton Arms is very much like walking into Kreitzman-world. I knew she would want to see it in all its glory. And in a funny way, I had a feeling that the (highly painted) walls of the hotel would appreciate seeing Sue, too.

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Funnily oh so funnily, here is a little small world digression vignette: I was meeting a friend, choreographer Noah Gelber, and his artist father, Samuel Gelber, later in the day to chat with my old buddy Noah and to see some of his fathers paintings. I had asked if they would like to join my friend and I for bagels, but you know how it is in NYC: so far from the Upper West Side, blah blah blah. They hadn’t realized who my friend was. Had I even mentioned her name? Am I too subdued in singing my friends’ praises?

Anyhow, as we sipped tea, viewed paintings, chatted about the world around us, catching up on life, Noah and Samuel told us about a wonderful thing that had happened to them the night before. They went out to their local diner, and “This woman, this bright colourful woman, came in! The charismatic woman with the big glasses, the one who cloaks herself in colours! We felt so lucky to be in her presence! She is so inspiring!” They were smitten and inspired and uplifted, I wasn’t sure if I should even tell them that this was who I had wanted them to meet, for the disappointment that I knew would follow. They were right though that it is indeed wonderful to be in her presence.

I knew of Sue as a food writer in the USA long before I met her, before either of us picked up stakes and relocated to the UK. Her paperbacks on Deli and Potatoes were near-classics. It never dawned on me that she was living in London too; and weirdly, because no one, I mean no one, was living in the East End then—this was decades ago. Except me. Or so I thought. Turned out, Sue Kreitzman was!

It was my husband, Alan, who discovered her. He was in a bookshop in Central London, got into conversation with the author who was signing books, and said: “My wife is American, we live in the East End”. At first she didn’t believe him, because as I knew of Sue Kreitzman and her books, she too knew of me. She may have thought he was a lunatic: Marlena Spieler? London? East End?

But she came to our warehouse flat, we went to her little cottage behind a bakery on Roman Road, so charming, so cozy, so much a death trap with the bakery ovens and only one exit. It was filled with the colours of life: with icons and motifs and was like a little nest of a colour-bird. Eventually we were hanging out with Sue, regularly.

When she bought the former East End council flat we thought she was crazy. Why would she want to live here when she could move out to where other people, where there was culture, and art, and....colour? But culture, art, and culture came to the East End, they came to Sue. By then, we had fled London for the pure air, leafy green fields, and utter boredom (especially foodwise) of Hampshire.

Back to Sue, in her East End flat, where the painters have just been and the walls look like a box of paints have exploded onto the walls: flashes and slashes of red, yellow, green. The team of painters were convinced that she is a crazy (she’s Amerian of course she’s crazy, right?) lady and if she wants her walls to look like this, lets paint em and get outta here. In case she wants something even crazier done tomorrow.

But no, she loved her brightly coloured walls; they became the backdrop to her even more colourful paintings, sculptures, ceramics, icons, everything: her oh so colourful life.

When Sue moved to the UK she became famous writing low fat cookbooks, then became a daytime television cooking star. Nigella sang her praises. But despite Sue’s high profile much of the food media were miserable to her. (I’ll describe bigotry, another time, because its just so heartbreaking) (Suffice to say: its not as unusual as you might think. Its almost…almost…nothing personal). But of course its demoralizing and oppressive.

One evening I invited Sue to a professional body of food writers. Many of them treated her like a leper; turning their back to her when she approached. I guess I had gotten used to this sort of behaviour as it often happened to me; perhaps I just put up with and dismiss abuse more readily.

Sue was, as they say: “Not pleased”. She loved writing recipes, telling stories, all from the little house with the brightly coloured walls in her brightly coloured life. But, where was community? (I understand, I felt, I feel, the same way).

One day as she was finishing up the edits on her latest manuscript, low fat something to make you happy and healthy, and found her mind wandering, her hand doodling. She was no longer tensely going over each word and correction, but instead became lost in the colourful squiggles on the margins of her manuscript. And suddenly she knew: I don't want to write any more books, I want to make art!

By the moment of her realization, it was already fact: her house was art, her clothing was art, her food and cookbooks: yep, art. Her table, so colourful, like eating a Matisse painting. And in art, in the art she created, she also found (or was it created) a community. Her art is unique; her fashion sense unique; if you follow her instagram you can feel a part of it all. She is, as she often captions a photo of herself heading off somewhere “On my way”.

How to describe Sue’s art? One can see her inspirations in Mexican themes and shrines as well as in African art, especially textiles. And female: mermaids and goddesses abound. Much of the art is practical, a Goddess-telephone, a jug for pouring, her massive collection of “neck shrines”, elaborate sculptures to be worn as necklaces, or vise versa. They are bursting with the essence of the life force.

Though Sue was a food writer, not a painter, art had never been far from her being.

Sue’s mother—as a young New York City girl: a socialist, and artists model—was painted by iconic Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (now equally famous as Frieda Kahlos husband, though at the time it was the other way around). The project had been commissioned by Rockerfeller, as an ode towards a hope for a modern, more equitable life for all. But it seems that Rivera and Rockerfeller had different ideas of what this exactly meant. When Rockerfeller discovered that Rivera had slipped in a portrait of Lenin, it was ordered removed. It disappeared.

Flash forward a couple of decades, there is Sue, visiting Mexico City’s Central Post Office for something practical and mundane. Stamps no doubt; maybe an aerogramme? While waiting in an endless line, she looked up and there on the wall, along with the many faces and people painted by Rivera, was her 14-year old mother! Sue had had no idea; the last she had heard the mural was destroyed. (This perhaps was a recreation based on Rivera’s notebooks and sketches?). I can only imagine the feeling of magical surprise she must have felt. I feel it just thinking about that moment.

When a London documentary created a series of extraordinary women who dress as a way of expressing themselves regardless of the prevailing styles and trends, their age, their colour and body type and…everything. The Fabulous Fashionistas was a huge success; people still stop Sue in the street. exclaiming: ”Is it really you?”.

The sense of community Sue didn’t find in the food writing/media world, she found in the making art enclave. The more art she made, the more people were attracted to her, they gravitated, and along the way brought their own unique flavour.

You might say that Sue has become a movement: a movement to make life more joyous through colour and the joy of self expression. Surrounded by friends and fellow creatives, she founded a monthly gathering at Spitalfields Antique Market, called Colourwalk. Anyone can join up! Just dress in a way that expresses your sense of your being. Together you walk, checking out vendors, spreading the joy of colour, and the joy of celebrating each others life. Somehow Sue’s movement has gone from making art, to living, BEING, art.

And instead of exclusive, as so many other corners of this life are, Sue’s corner is completely inclusive. You can join anytime. After you spend a day bathed in colour, you might feel a bit tired, okay, but you will probably also feel like you have visited another planet, a planet where anything is possible and likely brightly coloured, and everything is going to be alright.

I know thats how I always feel.