Britta Gustafson, Ellwood beach near the Sandpiper Golf Course, brittag@umail.ucsb.edu.
These old wooden poles at Ellwood illustrate a complex human relationship with the local beach that extends back thousands of years. The scene includes: piles of stones balanced by contemporary visitors as a non-polluting way to enjoy and decorate the beach, wood pilings anonymously planted decades ago to defend the bluff from erosion, and camouflaged pieces of rusty metal left by hundreds of years of industrial oil and fishing activity.