My Father
by Jakub · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Jakub's father made metal components for thirty years — parts nobody ever sees. He never understood what Jakub does — not from lack of intelligence, but because he never made anything whose purpose was only to be looked at. First commission: twenty euros. Father told everyone at the factory. Jakub doesn't know what he said. He's glad he did.
My father worked in manufacturing for thirty years. He made components — small metal parts for larger machines, the kind of thing that exists to make something else work and is never seen by the person whose machine it is. He was good at it. He retired four years ago and misses it in a way he doesn't know how to say.
He never understood what I do. Not from lack of intelligence — he understood the technical parts when I explained them — but because I make things whose purpose is to be looked at, and he has never in his life made something whose only purpose was to be looked at. The utility was always somewhere else, one step removed, hidden inside a larger machine. He thought this was honourable. I think it was honourable too.
When I got my first commission — a small illustration for a local magazine, twenty euros — he told my mother. She told me he told everyone at the factory. I was twenty-three and it was twenty euros. I don't know exactly what he said about it. I'm glad he did.
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