Santa Barbara, California 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart
How the Water Becomes Wood
A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands in stacked Baltic birch, 16 by 20 inches: the American Riviera's south-facing coast and the wild islands across its channel, carved one depth contour per layer.
Santa Barbara cheats geography: the coast turns to face south here, the mountains block the weather, and the town gets a Mediterranean life the rest of the state envies. Stearns Wharf, the oldest working wooden wharf in California, has reached off the beach since 1872. Across the channel stand the Channel Islands, the Galapagos of North America, with their island foxes and sea caves, and the deep water between runs one of the richest whale corridors on the coast. On the chart, the channel's engraved trench separates the mainland shelf from the islands' own stack of birch.
Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.
Harbor sunsets with islands on the horizon: the daily show, framed for permanent viewing.
The engraving spans the harbor and wharf, Goleta and Montecito's coast, and Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Anacapa islands across the channel. The full state edge runs on the California Coast chart.
- 16 × 20 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light
- Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
- Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
- 14-day returns
Live from the water