PIECING IT TOGETHER

When Patricia Alpert retired in 2015 from her longtime position as executive director of Carpinteria Education Foundation, she pivoted her focus. “For so long, my passion was raising money for public schools,” the glass artist said, running a hand along one of her first glass creations—a mosaic of a highland cow Alpert had photographed on a trip to Scotland. “I needed to go in a different direction.”

And in a different direction she went. Alpert spotted an upcoming glass mosaic workshop with mosaic artist Donna Van Hooser while on Pinterest. The workshop was geared for people with experience, but Alpert signed up anyway. Van Hooser was serious. “’You need to commit to the glass,’” Alpert recalls her saying.

After that weekend, Alpert was hooked. She took photos of her friends’ animals from Facebook, turned them into colorful glass creations, and gifted them, oftentimes featuring pets that had passed. She entered the Rincon Exhibit at the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center with a mosaic of a girl with a surfboard standing beneath palm trees. To her surprise and delight, the piece sold for $400 before the reception. Before long, she found herself in “Small Town Big Art,” a coffeetable book featuring 100 Carpinteria artists.

Now, Alpert fills her time with commissions, her Breda glass cutter in hand. She cuts glass passed down from her mother, who was a stained glass artist, and uses grout from Carpinteria Valley Lumber to fill in the lines. When she finds herself stuck, she picks up the “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron to keep the creativity flowing.

Interested in seeing more of Alpert’s work? Visit alperts.me.

-EVELYN SPENCE

California Avocado Festival Carpinteria, CA

37th

Block Party Friday Oct. 6

Saturday Oct. 7 &

Sunday Oct. 8, 2023

WORDS AND

BY CHUCK GRAHAM

Iused to run barefoot down the single-lane road in Sandyland Cove in the dark towards the mouth of the Carpinteria Marsh. I’d jump off the seawall during incoming tides to surf Sand Point. When the surf was good, I’d only count a tube ride if I didn’t get my hair wet. It was one of the many joys of growing up on the Carpinteria Marsh.

Forty-five years living on and photographing the Carpinteria Salt Marsh have been filled with halcyon days of surfing, running on the beach, walking from the beach house to my lifeguard tower, and photographing all the natural wonders within one of California’s last coastal wetlands. I’ll always remember the migratory belted kingfisher; it’s rattling calls were my personal alarm clock awakening me during the early hours of fall and winter. I grew up on the marsh with my dad, Chuck Sr., mom Marilyn, and sister Valerie. I lived there from 1975 to 1999. For the first 13 years, there were roughly eight year-round residents among the 29 properties. We really didn’t have any neighbors.

When the surf wasn’t any good, the marsh served as an outlet for entertainment. Eventually, I started birding in the marsh. In 1985, I bought my first pair of binoculars. By 1991, I’d purchased my first camera, a Canon EOS 630. My slide film of choice was Fujichrome Velvia 50. I still have that camera and about 40 rolls of film in the fridge.

Over the years, I tracked in a lot of mud, frequently catching the ire of my dad who was fastidious about keeping that beach house as clean as a beach house could be. I always appreciated his hard work as a husband, father, role model, and businessman.

OCEAN FURY

El Niño 1982-83. It was the first time I felt vulnerable living at the beach. The ocean seemed angry and unleashed a series of storms that didn’t seem real. They hammered away at the seawall and eventually breached it. The house shook with each crashing wave. Being among the few year-round residents, we were there to fend off nature’s fury. Other homeowners weren’t so lucky. Our next-door neighbors to the west had a tree go right through their patio window.

I remember my dad, myself, and several friends sandbagging and placing plywood in front of

Carpinteria Salt Marsh over the years

The Carpinteria Salt Marsh easily could have ended up like 90 percent of California’s original wetlands: paved over completely. But it’s a story of hope rather than regret. And in the last 40 years, extraordinary efforts to restore and preserve the unique habitat have resulted in a place where salt and fresh waters converge and native species flourish.

Before settlers began altering the slough, El Estero, was about twice the size it is today, spanning nearly to Foothill Road to the north, Nidever Road to the west and Carpinteria Creek to the east.

Portions the marsh are drained by settlers for development. Georgia states, lowlands on lower Santa Monica Creek Road and others followed the practice, beginning one of the major changes in the valley, and reducing the slough from its extent across the valley floor to its present tidelands.”

Caldwell the windows facing the ocean. When the sea wall was breached, water ran down between the houses like little tributaries feeding an already swollen marsh at high tide.

Our garage under the house filled with water, and the neighborhood became most vulnerable at high tide when floodwaters flowed down from the coastal range into the wetland. Combined with high tides, the floodwaters had nowhere else to go but up and over the single lane road, swamping driveways and garages.

Staying Home

As my writing and photography career progressed, I took heed of useful advice from mentors like the late wildlife photographer Tom Vezo. In the 1990s, Vezo was one of the best nature photographers in the business. I first met him in the Galápagos Islands in 1997, then Nome, Alaska in 1998. In 2000, I helped Vezo gain access to the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge to photograph California condors for his first book, “Birds of Prey in the American West,” 2002.

When I told him where I lived, he said, “I know you want to travel and photograph, but try and stay home.”

He was right. He knew the resource I had here at the Carpinteria Marsh. And as much as I traveled, I always came back to the marsh to photograph. It has proven to be a reliable source of inspiration for landscapes, birdlife, and storytelling.

Reclaiming The Marshland Biome

In 1998, the City of Carpinteria partnered with Santa Barbara Land Trust and the University of California Reserve System to restore former wetland habitat along Ash Avenue. The 15-acre Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park is one of this coastal city’s many natural wonders, a gem of a reestablished refuge for resident and migratory birds.

Courtesy Of Matt Roberts

The beachfront remains relatively undeveloped as of 1935. The construction of the Santa Barbara Breakwater in 1929 changes the flow of sand down the coast and contributes to the extensive damage beachfront homes sustained in storms in the late 1930s.

Plans are presented for a 334acre marina development in the “Sandyland Slough” area. Ultimately rejected, the plans call for a 900boat dock, a private marina for 100 boats, an island with a yacht club, 531 residential lots each with its own dock along a series of keys, and more.

Eleven Sandyland Cove homeowners sell their 120-acre portion of the marsh to the University of California to add to its Natural Reserve System. The deal took seven years to complete and involved several public agencies.

1980 1991 1996

The City of Carpinteria’s Local Coastal Plan is certified. It contains language for the protection and restoration of wetland resources, marking the first step toward the creation of the City’s Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park.

The 4.7-acre Chadwick property on the west side of Ash Avenue is acquired for $1.375 million dollars with funds from the Coastal Conservancy and Prop 70. This was the first acquisition toward creation of the City’s Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park.

The City of Carpinteria and the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County acquire the final property necessary for the marsh park. The 3.4-acre parcel was owned by the Cadwell family, who had been recently denied its proposal for a beachfront condominium development on the site. Monies used in the purchase include a $500,000 fund that the California Coastal Commission required as a mitigation measure from the Sandyland Cove Homeowners Association’s seawall construction years prior.

From the window of my Sand Point studio above the garage and overlooking the marsh, I had a bird’s eye view of the restoration. Since my family’s arrival in Sandyland Cove in 1975, that stretch of wetland had been nothing more than tangled crabgrass 6 feet tall. It also was becoming a dump for anyone who couldn’t locate a trash can along Ash Avenue.

The benefits of the restoration have been astounding, as evidenced by the diversity of birds that wade, swim, roost, and hover in, around, and above those muddy, serpentine-like channels. Close to 250 bird species have been documented enjoying this sliver of marshland habitat.

Pickleweed Ramble

Some of the best birding on the marsh can be accomplished by simply posting up on an embankment and scanning the pickleweed for possibilities. For a couple of weeks in February 2023, I didn’t have to do much scanning. The pearly white feathers of six migratory American white pelicans stood out against the colorful palette of pickleweed on the Carpinteria Salt Marsh. With the naked eye, they were easily seen at least a half-mile west of the footbridge.

During one late afternoon, I heard a peregrine falcon call out, “kak, kak, kak.” It flushed all other birdlife from a prominent channel, except for the pelicans. At first, I didn’t locate the steely raptor. When I scanned 360 degrees, I found it perched not 50 yards from me, camouflaged against one of the huge tree trunks that came to rest in the marsh after the flooding from January 9, 2018, and during the winter of 2022-23.

I was suddenly conflicted on what to photograph. However, I noticed myself inching closer to the peregrine. These are good choices to have across the living marsh. 

The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County completes a $1.9 million wetland restoration project in its 34 acres of the marsh, located between the UC Reserve and the City’s Marsh Park. The project includes excavation of tidal channels that had been silted in by runoff and obstructed by berms and roads built in the marsh over the years. Non-native vegetation is removed and several acres are graded to restore wetland habitat. Also, the pedestrian bridge over Franklin Creek is constructed to connect the City’s Nature Park to the Land Trust’s public trail. 

Girls grow up surrounded by the message “No Girls Allowed.” It’s not printed out and stapled to the door, but it might as well be. The invisible writing is scrawled across hundreds of potential careers, in the faces of the men that hold the jobs and serve as the role models for the next generation: the police officers, the mechanics, the welders, the professional sports VPs. Times are changing, though, and Carpinteria girls now recognize themselves in the places they didn’t exist before. We’re pleased to introduce four women who refused to follow the invisible rules and erased the “no” from “no girls allowed.”