Francesca Gastone

Mikel Casal is an artist and illustrator from the Basque Country in Northern Spain. He's produced work for a wide range of publishing and editorial clients around the world, including The Guardian (UK), Tatler (Hong Kong), Courrier International (France), El Comercio (Peru), The Boston Globe (USA) and Media Vaca (Spain).

“My grandfather was a diver. Old style one, with a diving suit and a huge moustache.

All my uncles, cousins and all their friends were fishermen or merchant seamen.

My father was a fishing boat captain so I used to spend long hours looking at the horizon in case his boat appeared.

After spending so many hours under the salty sea breeze, my bike got rusty. But I didn’t dump it. In fact, I still have it. How silly to get rid of things that we like and are still good!”