tension in a circle of serenity
by William C. Nelson

.: Leopard Frog, 2002, by Jeff Whetsone. Click to enlarge. :.

eff Whetstone freely admits, "I never worked with animals before."

It was an omission his artistic soul could not let stand forever. Though Whetstone has for more than a decade built a reputation as a photojournalist and writer concentrating on Southern life, small communities, and migrant workers — that is, on humans — his creative instincts draw equally from a rural East Tennessee childhood spent largely out-of-doors and blessedly free. "I had miles of hill country to roam, laced with trails, braided by streams, and pocked with caves," wrote the thirty-four-year-old Chattanooga native. Recalling a fascination with the animal kingdom he nurtured while a boy, Whetstone tells how he became a discerning naturalist in the outsized East Tennessee woods. "I could distinguish the subtle markings differentiating a Northern Water Snake from a Common Water Snake. I learned there are twenty-three types of crawdads. A salamander tadpole develops differently than a frog tadpole."

The meaning of this youthful experience found expression in Animal Planet. This exhibition is a "commentary on how humans relate to nature," Whetstone says.

.: Marbled Salamander, 2002, by Jeff Whetsone. Click to enlarge. :.

Animal Planet is remarkable for the seeming spotlight it casts on each subject. Though set in environs where the animals make their homes — streambeds and leaf-strewn forest floors — each work presents a creature isolated from its surroundings by the man-made vessel holding it captive. Tadpoles press the sides of a water bowl, their tails pointing inward in unison as each strives to break free; an opossum regards the camera's lens with an evil eye, palpably demanding immediate release or else; a frog is unceremoniously plopped before prying viewers, who could never apprehend the texture of its flesh or the shine of its eye were it to hop free in the moss.

Whetstone is sensitive to the seeming cruelty of this intrusion. He did not harm the creatures showcased by his eight-by-ten-inch camera. (Whetstone worked with an animal-control agent.) But he does not deny a deliberate "tension" suffusing these images, the disturbing "element of capture." The periphery of each photograph illustrates a circle of serenity, the natural habitat whence the creature was momentarily snatched. In the center, the human artifice: a beaker or bowl for displaying animals, which Whetstone says "becomes like an altar where we are offered the opportunity to meditate on them at our leisure, not for just a fleeting moment."

.: Juvenile Water Snake, 2002, by Jeff Whetsone. Click to enlarge. :.

Whetstone speaks, slowly and deliberately, of finding his artistic center "in places where nature thrives despite human activity, and where humans commune with nature out of a sense of instinct. I'm very interested in trails in suburban areas — in finding the human link to the natural world: gardeners who don't really need to garden for food; hunters who hunt for pleasure; kids exploring the woods." When teaching his introductory course in photography at UNC-Chapel Hill, or a class in portraiture at Carolina and at Duke, the value Whetstone most wants to instill in his students is that of observation. They should learn, he says, to "pay close attention, to scrutinize every detail of the world in which they live. The world, as it is, is incredibly complex — often more so than our imagination of it."

Ackland Art Museum exhibited works by Whetstone, lecturer of photography in the Department of Art, as part of its Biennial Studio Art Faculty Exhibition. Animal Planet showed in early 2003. Whetstone exhibits at the Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York City, through May 31, 2003.

William C. Nelson is a recent graduate of Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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