Portrait of Jakob (April 2022)

This portrait, uniquely, starts its life in a moving vehicle. Jakob is on the left side at the steering wheel – because that is how we roll here in Europe – as we hunt for a parking space and a place to sit and share a dialogue.

Shortly after, I am sitting at a small table with Jakob. He is in his leisure clothes, for comfort, he tells me. The plan to meet near his home did not come off, the train driver taking the train from its platform before the new arrivals from the late bus, including myself, had had a chance to board, and Jakob had had to come and pick me up, showing off his improvisational skills. We had shared a short adventure to get to the centre of a small town and find a bar in which to have a drink.

Jakob has apologised for being dressed in such a manner and for having not had a shave, but the rough-hewn human before me is perfectly ripe for the portrait treatment. He takes a call, to talk to a work colleague in his native German, and he looks calm, peaceful, serene. Life is good here.

We have an incredibly intense, in depth and fascinating dialogue about growing up, rushing into things (that which people excelled at), travelling, exploring being young. He mentions his older twenty-something cousin who he is meeting later today and the role model that his cousin is to him.

Jakob has an abundant beard, the kind of thicket nothing could get out of once inside. I tell him that blond and ginger are fighting for territory there. He tells me he sees it as more of a brown (preferred) than ginger (less desirable), we haggle, and he convinces me it does have brown in there and the three colours are coexisting. I see Jakob and his general aspect as being that of a blond man, and he has a beard that is tidily trimmed. He checks his calendar to see when his rejection from a potential film extra role happened. That was last November, and he’s been growing his facial hair since.

He then touches on his desire to travel, to move out, to spread his twenty-two-year-old wings and see what exists beyond his present sphere. He states that he is like his dad, with strong beliefs and morals, and that he cannot hold his tongue and there is a resultant clash between the two only known by echoing characters. Jakob doesn’t waste smiles – his are natural, easy, filtering into the conversation in a way that lends an air of tranquillity, of authenticity, and of curiosity. He could go far. It’s no wonder that travelling – and God knows where – is calling him. The sky is the limit.

He describes his dog, Snoopy, as a dark black-haired Labrador and his ‘spirit animal’ who is ‘ridiculously photogenic,’ and Jakob is disappointed we are not at his house to introduce me as we had planned to be.

Our conversation attends to politics, TV, the war in Ukraine, inevitably, and more, as we roam the conversational landscape. Jakob is ever calm, his voice constant, restrained yet never monotonous, more reassuring. There may be little undulation – less dramatic dynamics than other more confident or extroverted folks – but he has much to offer conversationally, even as a character. His soft drink is three quarters untouched.

He has on a short-sleeved t-shirt – blue with white lines that I find difficult to describe. He has a hairy chest only detectable owing to the V-neck. His arms are almost lit up with an abundance of golden pin-like hairs, a minor forest there. Jakob’s hair is neatly chopped. He has a side parting on his right (my left), and he has used his hand to brush it over and to the left (his right). He tells me he applies styling wax and that yesterday he did sport with his ‘nerd friends’, insisting that they all are precisely that, himself included, and clearly liking the label. It is important to add that he is a metalhead by heart and wishes to have long hair. He says he has ‘many nerd friends’ about his fellow gaming buddies and states they have fun playing and getting up to all manner of antics together.

He is 1,92m. I knew he would be tall, towering over me, and he was. He is also quite a muscular physical presence, and he offered his handshake when first we had met. This seemed extraordinary after the lack of contact of the pandemic. Were we finally emerging from that? Had Jakob arrived to signal that as well as have his portrait done? Was just a meeting setting us all free or was I reading too much into it?

He is wearing green cargo trousers with a dog’s paw print on them, scruffy trainers, and black socks. His complexion is fair, he looks German, and his eyes are blue but also brown with a dash of green depending on the day.

He tells me he has read a text in which Julius Caesar describes barbarians as looking almost identical to himself. He also goes on to say that in the days of Caesar if it got too hot the barbarians wanted to just lay in the shade. He certainly sees himself that way. He is incredibly easy to talk to, for a barbarian that is. To the point at which the occasion is calling for me to write and stop such an active dialogue with him. He is both fuelling the fire and stopping it from flourishing. He keeps talking – at ease with me as he clearly is – relishing storytelling, or not wanting to sit in silence. Nevertheless, he makes his own artwork a fascinating one.

Jakob tells me I have been great company as we drive to the station together, the portrait in motion once more, to cease our short, sharp but sweet afternoon in each other’s company, a wonderful two hours passed together (probably the only two hours in which we will ever be physically present in the same bubble).

We had shared a mini adventure, experiencing fun and laughter, curiosity, and fascination. Dialogue had been easy, comfortable, challenging, Jakob being precisely the young man I had hoped he would be – an open book, a brilliant mind, a talker, a listener, anything but statuesque, despite his placid nature and minimal movements (he was not sloth-like and something else lurked under his surface, like a human scratch card with the good stuff simply demanding a little scratching to reveal). His portrait had followed a week after Lotte’s and that I knew them from the same work environment and saw certain similarities between them made perfect sense to me even after observing, admiring, and shaping them into word sculptures.

Jakob had delivered me to the station, talked to me while we had waited for my bus, and checked I departed safely (or made sure he got rid of me!). It had been thoroughly entertaining, and indicative of what Jakob is open to and capable of; for once I had invested my energy in the right people – both he and Lotte.

The portrait had started and ended with a funny drive and a chat, a whistle-stop encounter. It was all a bit ramshackle, as I look back at it over my shoulder, but there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that and it only shows how Jakob was the perfect subject and partner in crime for such a spontaneous voyage.

The journey never really ends though. The portrait on wheels had stopped for a moment, as if it had taxied to the runway and was paused, waiting, primed for take-off. Imagine, if you will, a painting framed on the sides and the base of the portrait. The top, the lid, remaining absent, Jakob about to fly off to other climes.