People We Meet: Sarah Koh

San Francisco CA

21 March, 2021

5:24 PM

Description

By Juan Carlos Lara, Mission Local March 21, 2021 Sarah Koh works as a yoga instructor, but has recently been expanding her creative efforts. She had to. After teaching remotely, she said, "You feel like you're talking to yourself. You don't have that bouncing back and forth of connection." With her options severely limited, Koh turned to painting and began holding occasional art nights a few months ago in her Valencia Street backyard. What began as a small, casual night of painting among her housemates soon grew to include other residents of her building, and invitations to local artists for group lessons. "The idea is to bring in local artists and get back into the spirit of creating together and being inspired," Koh said. When Covid-19 cases spiked in San Francisco in December, she cancelled the event, but now hosts it every first Thursday of the month, and hopes to expand it even more. Moreover, she is starting to land work through her art. One night at Casements, she started talking to someone who works at the Spice Jar and, before she knew it, she had a contract to paint three sections of the restaurant's parklet. One depicts edible plants and small jars, to "remind people these spices come from plants," and another features the restaurant's name on a pink background with sporadic splashes of paint strewn across the wooden planks. The third will be a large tree. "It's just nice and colorful. I think sometimes we forget how much art can add to the environment," Koh said. Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.