Gus Powell is an American photographer.
Episode 114: Gus Powell is an American photographer whose book Family Car Trouble published by TBW Books is a reflection on life, death and the struggle to keep both an ailing car and an ailing father in tow. The car itself becomes a metaphor for family life and struggle.
Throughout the book, there is a strong pull towards empathy through loss and the chaos of nurturing family connections. It is also a reflection of mid-life and bears all the considerations of the trials and tribulations of parenthood at its peak while it also dutifully considers the position of being a child of older parents.
Gus Powell, “Peter and Debra” from the series Family Car Trouble
From the book FAMILY CAR TROUBLE by Gus Powell (TBW Books 2019)
This moment of mid-life when one is pulled between the doting work necessary to facilitate a budding family and the gruelling psychological acceptance of dealing with ailing parents is presented within the pages of the book. This particular of the book functions as a portal for universal understanding. You see Powell’s dedication to the oncoming death of his father and the engagement between the two and the rest of the family as it wavers between inevitable acceptance and their tender and caring moments.
In the episode, we speak about Gus’s books and Family Car Trouble. It was an intense, honest and giving discussion in which we cover our own tales of family and of loss. I came away with the sense of Gus’s balanced vision of life and work. There is also some humor in our conversation and I think in its total, I would describe it as humane and like the episode with Judith Black, very intimate. Please tune in.
