Alek.

Last Christmas, Alek took the ferry to spend three days on his island. His father, a retired fisherman, was sitting in the kitchen mid-morning with nothing to do, and Alek recognized the posture: it's his own when the workshop closes for a storm. He didn't ask how he was doing. He got out the tools and told him the faucet was leaking. It wasn't leaking. They spent the morning taking it apart and putting it back together, the two of them, barely talking. To someone who's shutting down, Alek doesn't give words; he gives them something to do. Caring like that, with a made-up errand, is one of the most Alek things about him.

A canvas bag suits him for exactly that reason: it's the object of someone who carries things from here to there without making a fuss about it — the market shopping, the bread, a spare part, whatever comes up. You sling it over your shoulder, fill it, empty it, and do the same the next day. I created it front-on, with a plain background: in the portrait you only see his friendly face, and everything else goes inside, invisible. The rest of his day is on his profile, which doesn't fit on a canvas bag.