Back in 2019 B.C (before COVID), some of the DGO Mag staff hit the road for a short trip to Denver, where we had loaded our weekend with all things cannabis- related. We’d been looking for a hot minute to find a business that offered cannabis-related activities that were interesting enough to write on, and had stumbled upon the Kush & Canvases website one quiet Tuesday afternoon. And that, friends, is how we ended up on the front steps of Sarah Woodson’s Denver home.
Kush & Canvases is a small business started by Woodson, where clients can take classes in which they may paint and ingest marijuana or take sushi and joint rolling classes (it’s a bring-your-own-weed policy). We were there for the sushi. We could tell right off the bat this night was gonna get interesting. We had smoked just before we’d arrived (don’t worry, we took a Lyft) and couldn’t stop laughing long enough to show everyone that we were indeed very serious journalists. We had also never rolled sushi before, and the idea of learning in front of another group of people was daunting.
Luckily, it was just us and a couple who were visiting from Colorado Springs while another group sat in the back painting and laughing so much we were a little jealous we couldn’t join them. Nice, intimate, and not intimidating whatsoever.
Woodson’s story of how she came to be the entrepreneur of her own cannabis cooking and art classes is unique. Not long ago, Woodson was a paralegal who had built up her legal career for a decade before it lost its allure, according to a profile Ebony published on her.
“What I could think of, what I could do to get out of the legal career?” Woodson told Ebony. “If I smoked weed, what is something I would love to do? Weed and paint!”
Ebony reported that Woodson is probably one of very few African Americans working in Colorado’s social cannabis consumption industry. She told Ebony she hopes to rally more Black people and people of color to work in the cannabis field. That, friends, is how this scenario came to be. We were making three rolls that evening – tuna, mushroom, and imitation crab – with chef Harold Sims, who we later learned has the superpower of infinite levels of patience.
After what I thought was carefully cutting the tuna meat and rolls as Sims had demonstrated, it was apparent that my inability to follow directions had
followed me into this sushi class. Our entire table spent the evening cry-laughing at my sorry attempts to make sushi, which was not fit for even a dog to eat.
At one point, the way I cut my sushi roll caused it to completely fall apart, and the chef took my knife away and sliced it himself so I had at least one decent roll to show off to the world on my Instagram feed.
My attempt to follow his instructions on how to roll a joint did not go well either. Eventually, I gave up and handed over my roll to Sims so that he could fix it into being something smokable.
If you’re looking for a night of a helluva lot of fun, weed consumption, and laughter, and you’re intimidated by the idea of being around a big group of people you don’t know, Kush & Canvases might be the class for you. There’s nothing intimidating about stepping into Woodson’s home. The instantaneous warm welcome will easily fool you into forgetting you’re not rolling sushi and joints in your own home. At Kush & Canvases, you’re among friends, even with strangers.
