Benjamin Sack Draws the World From the Deck of a Cruise Ship

Benjamin Sack has spent a decade drawing the world from the inside of a moving ship. He describes himself as "the proverbial wandering Jew," and his work backs up the line. Sack makes intricate, meticulously detailed drawings of cities, labyrinths and imagined worlds, and he has circled the globe eight times as an artist-in-residence on cruise ships doing around-the-world voyages.

A Pitch That Worked

Sack's path to sea started with a restlessness. He graduated with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 and wanted to see the places he was drawing. "Books are wonderful, the internet is great, but to draw something from life, it's a whole other experience," he said. The problem was money. "I'm not a millionaire yet, so I need to figure this out."

The answer came from an advertisement for a "Grand World Voyage" run by Holland America aboard the Amsterdam. The ship's onboard style leaned on the Dutch Golden Age, and Sack saw a natural fit. "The Dutch were some of the most beautiful mapmakers ever, and I grew up drawing from them," he said. "It just seemed like a marriage of kindred spirits."

He had never held an artist-in-residence post, and he said so in his pitch. He proposed teaching and making art in exchange for a cabin. The cruise line said yes within a few weeks. That's a lean arrangement for a young artist, and it's the reason his career looks the way it does now: a studio that moves, a paying audience of travelers, and a steady supply of subject matter.

114 Days, 38 Ports, Five Continents

His first Grand World Voyage in 2014 lasted 114 days. The ship called at 38 ports on five continents, including Easter Island, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Cape Town. Asked whether it changed him, Sack didn't hedge. "Oh yes," he said. "Third, fourth and fifth-eye opening."

Life on board follows a rhythm. Sack teaches drawing classes to fellow passengers, because a world voyage has long stretches between ports. Those gaps are when he works on the piece he makes to mark each journey: a large-format, one-of-a-kind work that captures the trip as a whole.

The photo below shows one of those studio-in-a-cabin moments.

Courtesy of the artist

Eight Laps, One Evolving Style

Sack has made a world voyage nearly every year since 2014. The exception was the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also taken several shorter stints on other ships. Across all of that, the work has changed.

The early pieces were direct. "With the first one, I was essentially trying to echo the Dutch masters, a kind of a unique projection of the world, with small little details of the ports we visited," Sack said. Over time, the drawings developed their own look. "They kind of came into their own with a certain kind of style and aesthetic which I feel is very much my own."

The detail is the point. Sack's cities are built from fine lines, and the density is what makes them work. The tension is between the big picture and the small one. A projection of the whole planet only holds attention if there's something to find in it up close.

Courtesy of the artist

Portable by Design

The logistics are simpler than you'd expect. Sack's cabin doubles as his studio. He asks the crew to take down the hooks, hangers and artwork, and the wall becomes a place to pin work in progress. That's the practical side of his process, and it's also the reason the medium suits him. "I can take it anywhere. That's the point," he said. "Pen, paper." The structure of his cities, drawn as ink on a flat plane, is simple to carry, even if the finished pieces are anything but.

Sack also points to childhood as the source of this. He was the kid who drew in class, and adults kept telling him he'd grow up to be an artist. He says he was always doodling and always absorbed in paper, and that a sketchbook was enough to keep him occupied. Looking back, he sees a straight line from that kid to the man drawing on a ship. Looking forward, he admits he still isn't sure how to define what he does.

His stylistic influences reach back centuries. He names William Blake as one of his favorites, and the line he returns to most is from "Auguries of Innocence": "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour." Sack also cites Gustav Mahler, who wrote, "A symphony should be like the world. It should contain everything." Sack hears the same idea in both: small things can reveal large ones, and the reverse is true too.

Jewish Identity and the Act of Drawing

Sack ties his Jewish identity to the restless, outward movement in his work. He points to Abraham, who was told to "go out" before the broader biblical story began. "There's this sense of not just going into the world, but capturing the world," he said.

He frames drawing as a way of engaging with the world, appreciating it and adding to it. "Fundamentally, drawing anything is Genesis," he said. "You know, 'In the beginning.'" That reading gives the work a theological undertone without making it preachy. A ship's voyage is a kind of wandering, and a drawn map is an attempt to hold the whole of it in one frame.

Sack's work is represented by Robert Fontaine Gallery in Miami and Galeria Ethra in Mexico City. Those partnerships are where his voyage-made pieces move from the ship to collectors. Sack describes his output on his website as shaped by "historical cartography, symphonic orchestration, architectural drawing and extensive travel."

What Comes Next

Sack's experience points to a model that's worth watching. A working artist, a moving studio and a niche audience of travelers can produce a body of work that couldn't exist anywhere else. The format is narrow, but the results aren't, and that's the part that stands out. Sack's cities are only possible because he keeps going back to the water, one port and one deadline at a time.

The question now is where the style goes after eight circumnavigations. Sack's own answer is that each new piece carries a journey, and the viewer's eye is what makes it move. If his drawings keep getting denser and more personal, the next voyage will be as much about what he's noticing as where he's been.