Artist
Biography
Tom Stone was born on a train outside of Mexico City traveling to Puerto Angel,
Oaxaca. His parents separated soon after his birth. He spent his early
childhood with his mother communally in Los Angeles' famed Source Family; and
after its dispersion, in various nomadic settings in Hawaii and California.
A graduate of Harvard University with a degree in Computer Science, he worked in
Silicon Valley for a number of years in investment banking and in the technology
industry.
He is a documentary photographer known for his portraits of people living along
the edges of society. His photography shares perspective with the work of
Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus and Sebastião Salgado.
Statement
I photograph people who skirt the edges of things; people whose connection to the
broader flow is murky or obscured. Mistaken as more, less or different
than they are; they aren’t really seen and don’t really belong. That’s
everyone sometimes; but some more often. I try to establish a line for a
moment. I hope to connect. And I see the most beautiful and the most
heartbreaking things.
To my thinking, the original human trauma is our separation. We are too
close not to need each other; and too far to trust each other. We rely on
dubious senses and clever devices to interact; but we are alone in our thoughts.
Lonely, insecure and uncertain; we pair, we group, we associate. We try to
belong and we seek to exclude. We form bonds by geography, religion,
economy and otherwise. But it is all precarious. We come together
and we drive apart.
And we climb our ladder. We step away from those who don’t belong and help
those who do. We are connected rung by rung – though less and less – as we
push and pull. But some do not climb; and below, the earth is littered
with them. They fit too poorly. They stand apart. They stand
without.
And what of them; these ones who don’t belong or who are excluded; who don’t fit
or don’t try? Is there nothing they value? Is there nothing of them
we value? I count it as a measure of our ignorance, the depth of poverty
in the world. It’s a glaring marker to how far we have not come. Yet
it has also driven our advance; on less fortunate backs and against less
fortunate fate.
But is there really no connection there? Does such fate – whether choice or
circumstance – speak nothing of us? Tell me we do more than advance in
place; with so many left behind. Or promise me we can do better. Say
we can reflect ourselves; us and them... That we can see the ways we overlap and
distinguish the ways we grow apart. And pledge that we can learn; to fit
all of our misshapes; to reward value beyond charity and beyond the marketplace;
to be better to each other; to be better ourselves. And promise me it
could be a better world. Or tell me we are at our best.
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