Drew Tewksbury

Drew Tewksbury grew up in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area of Arizona where he worked at Pacific Sunwear in the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall.  These days he lives in Los Angeles and works as a writer while taking photographs.

What's the best thing about Los Angeles?
 
Other than Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, I think the best part of LA is the sprawl.  It really makes the city feel more like Disneyland, not in the sense that there are oversized animatronic mice everywhere, but more in the compartmentalizing of a city.  Each area is like a different land: Downtown is like Tomorrowland with bums.  Venice is like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  Topanga is like Critter County, Los Feliz is like Main Street. It becomes an adventure right the second you get out of traffic.  

I love Roscoes.  But I mean, really… Disneyland with Roscoe’s is still a nightmarish place to live.

Nightmarish?  That is a place that would occupy my dreams, man.

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What do you try to capture with your photographs, specifically your landscapes?

With the my landscapes I am trying to do something that is completely opposite of the so-called "street photography." I wanted to make well composed photos where the subject is is less overt, but more secretive.  Most of my LA landscapes involve artifical landscape within Los Angeles, specifically the LA river, which was a real river at one time until it was entirely paved making it look more like an resevoir. Plastic surgery for a city.  It's pretty close to my house in Culver City and I go there at night

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for walks. I tried to only use light pollution and street lights to give that odd feeling of LA at night, where the sky looks like an illuminated concrete slab.  It's kind of beautiful in this postapocalyptic way.  

The night sky of Los Angeles is strange.  It’s never really black or even dark blue.  It’s pretty much brown.  What’s up with that?

It is the 16 million farts of 16 million asses, I believe.

You're also a writer, going to school now?  What's that like and what made you decide to continue your schooling?
 
I just started the Masters of Journalism at University of California.  I was writing for LA Alternative for the last year, mostly writing odd-LA stories or some social justice oriented articles, when I realized that I needed to normalize myself a bit.  Instead of just being a kind of "pick-up" journalist, I felt like I should learn from the pros.  The teachers at USC are really well versed, and have a huge bank of stories swarming in their heads.  They are the old school of journalism and professional storytellers, which is intensely interesting to me.

What pays the bills?
 
My aunt Sallie Mae and working at a gallery.

What's the worst job you've ever had?

Probably testing airline safety equipment or delivering teeth.  I eventually got a job getting people jobs, which was amazing, because I had the power to give people even worse jobs than I had ever had. My favorite job to give people was digging up Native American skulls.  That just felt good to explain to someone over the phone.

Like, "Get a shovel, find a burial ground... dig in!"???
 
I explained it as the following: "Would you like to help in an archaeologial excavation?  It's a really rewarding way to help a culture from a thousand years ago and you get to be outside all day!  Imagine not having to sit behind a desk or listen to your boss's nagging.  It's going to be hard work, but trust me, it's important work." What I didn't tell them about was the ghosts and/or interdimensional portals that may or may not be hidden in a former wigwam or whatever. Digging up an Indian burial ground, what could possibly go wrong?

You've been around the block a bit, no?  Where else have you lived and what was the best about that?
 
For travelling, I've been around a bit.  I traveled through Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Balkans.  Saw the midnight sun on the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, Russia.  Did some medical work in Haiti, probably got the shit cursed out of me by this Voodoo lady named "She is Dead." Backpacked through the Chilean Andes.  Well, I had a backpack and it was in my truck, so I think that was close enough to real backpacking.  I just didn't want to get my Diesels dirty, ya know?
 
For living, I think the best place in the known universe is Copenhagen, Denmark.  It is truly a utopia there, where you hang out all day drinking amazing beers, chomping on delicious pastries, or watching the sunrise over Sweden.  Instead of "bye," they say "hihi" how fucking cute is that?  I also lived in Harlem for a while, right down the street from the Apollo, which was pretty fun, especially when the snow would mix with discarded hair outside the barber shops, making little afro-snowballs. They tasted delicious.

What's next?
 
I'm hopefully going to finish school.  I'm getting more interested in documentary film as I work with video more at USC.  I am going back down to Mexico City in a few weeks to meet up with some anarchists I helped to build community gardens a few years ago.  I hope to be in Chiapas around December to do a fashion shoot with the Zapatistas.  I think their scarves will be so hot in Williamsburg in 2008.

Websites

 
as for links, you could just write the following: "Check out Drew's buddy Dan Gillis, III at www.underbellyla.blogspot.com or www.laalternative.com"