This page was created by Anonymous. The last update was by The 2018-2019 Mellon Sawyer Seminar at UCSB.
Carpinteria Tar Pits
The Carpinteria Tar Pits are spatially diffuse. They are not a single location, but can refer to the park that stretches the bluffs, the Sattler and Alcatraz Mines themselves, or the assortment of Tar Pit markers, signs, and exhibits that enable popular consumption of the pits and are likely visitors’ primary and most extensive engagement with the pits qua pits.
In my exploration of the pits, I walked east. It had rained the night before, and the morning was cool, so the tar was hard and immobile when I found it, and it did not smell. When I approached the remains of the mine to photograph the Lovecraftian, whirling pitch and examine the brick and lumber leftover from the mining days, a young woman was sitting on the far end, and did not seem to be bothered with the texture. Farther down on the bluffs, the tar was sticky in places, the beach covered with structures built of driftwood, striking to see against the looming spectre of the Chevron Pier in the distance at the terminus of Dump Road. The pier did not appear on Google Maps. It was unsearchable and, thanks to a Cornwall Security patrol car, unassailable.
The Carpinteria Tar Pits provide a highly unusual sensory experience. The visuals of the site seem to be drowned out by what surrounds it: the more visually appealing ocean, the vibrant tidepools, and the "nature walk" that carves its way through the tar pits with soft promises of meditation and relaxation. Dutifully, we don't see the oil platforms in the distance, the oil processing drum at the end of Dump Road. Despite the high visual currency surrounding the tar pits, the tar pit site itself doesn't actually offer much to look at. The most memorable sensual experience of the tar pits is the one that tourists are often warned against: touching the tar, playing with its stickiness in your hands, and experiencing the difficulty of removing it from your skin.
