This piece has a personal meaning for me. My family tree is full of people that has lived their lives, or part of them, on the seven seas. From small wooden fishing boats in the Baltic Sea to the great Transatlantic cruise ships of old. Three masted sailboats, steamboats and modern cruise ships alike, for generations my people have worked at sea, and I am here thanks to their strife.
Also, the man that first exposed me to miniatures was a old sailor not very different from the one I have painted here. His name was Alf and he lived on an island we used to go to during the summers when I was a child. I remember when he showed me into his small workshop where he built the most amazing models of ships, some that he had sailed on himself in the past. His hands were big and coarse from a life at sea, but still he managed to make the most delicate of details, perfectly lifelike but in miniature form. I can still remember how enchanted I was by that place, his old worn wooden workbench with all the small drawers containing ropes, lifeboats, steering wheels and other bits and bobs.