Detlef Jumpertz

The price for losing a bet was that the winner could choose a subject and the loser had to either respectively draw or photograph that subject. Here I was thinking I'd get something easy such as a landmark, famous person etc, instead I was given an Emily Dickinson poem Wild Nights to interpret:

Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in Thee!

It certainly provided a challenge in a compositional and technical sense! All that imagery, but how to bring it together as a whole? The simplest way was to make the poem a central visual element (the notepaper hanging from the writing bureau) and incorporate some supporting imagery. This drawing has strong New England influences ranging from the Winslow Homer on the wall, to the titles of the books in the bureau.

The end product is one that I can live with. Others thought more highly of it as it won the 2003 Canberra Art Prize for Drawing.

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