Salt Marsh
Image
Salt Marsh
Screening & Discussion
Thu, Oct 8, 5:30 pm
UVA Contemplative Commons 300–Studio 3B
Register Here
Drawing Workshop with Mitchell Rasor
Fri, Oct 9, 2–5 pm
Morven Sustainability Lab, 600 Morven Dr.
Register Here
Mitchell Rasor: Salt Marsh Artworks
Exhibition
Mon, Sept 14–Mon, Oct 19
Campbell East Wing Gallery
Artist and landscape architect Mitchell Rasor is the inaugural artist-in-residence at the UVA Morven Sustainability Lab. The public is invited to participate in a series of programs related to his practice that explores landscape, observation, memory, and environmental change through his evocative drawings. The residency includes a public screening of Salt Marsh and a conversation between Rasor and Morven Sustainability Lab Faculty Director Elizabeth Meyer, a collaborative outdoor drawing workshop at Morven, and an exhibition of Rasor's artwork in Campbell Hall's East Wing Gallery.
About Salt Marsh:
Salt Marsh, directed by Tom Bell, documents Maine artist Mitchell Rasor's wintertime salt marsh drawings. Filmed in the Spears Farm Estuary Preserve on the Royal River in Yarmouth, the film is a finely observed and evocative meditation on landscape, memory, and one man's obsession with capturing nature's fleeting essence on paper.
The film unfolds as a compelling portrait of the artist. The original score by Lee Ranaldo (former member of Sonic Youth) deepens the emotional register, resonating with the stillness and delicacy of Rasor's drawings. At once a study of a landscape and a meditation on artistic process, Salt Marsh offers a rare, poetic glimpse into drawing as a way of seeing and holding onto a world that is steadily disappearing. 2025, US, 15 minutes.
Drawing Workshop with Mitchell Rasor:
In this workshop, participants will collaborate directly with Rasor to create a large-scale transect drawing of the landscape at Morven, working together across the length of the piece to observe and record the site as a group. The finished piece will stretch 30 feet long and trace a single transect, capturing a glimpse of one of Morven's ecosystems.
Register separately for the screening and workshop, below.
About the Artist
Mitchell Rasor is an artist, musician, and founder of the award-winning landscape architecture and urban design office Rasor, which has been serving clients in Maine and beyond since 2000. Rasor is also a partner in Birds by Design and Clear Summit Investments. He holds degrees from Oberlin College and Harvard University and is an Assistant Professor at the Maine College of Art & Design. In 2025, Rasor attended the Pace House Residency and was the Visiting Artist and Scholar at Oberlin College and Harvard University. Salt Marsh, a documentary about his drawings by Tom Bell, premiered at the Camden International Film Festival and the Barcelona Film Festival in the fall of 2025.
