TOM JONES

This current work is rooted in Ho-Chunk identity. For the past twenty-five years, I have been working on an ongoing photographic series on the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. First and foremost, I am ever mindful of my responsibility to my tribe and want to carry on a sense of pride about who and what we are as a people. Through the use of portraiture, I am giving both the tribe and the outside world a perspective from someone who comes from within the Ho-Chunk community.

As a child, I went with my mother to see the Sioux medicine man Robert Stead on the Rosebud reservation. We sat on the floor along the walls with many other people, when the lights were turned off the women started to sing. They were asking for the spirits to come in, it was at this time that small orbs of light began to float around the room. Jones has visually incorporated this experience through beaded Ho-Chunk floral designs directly onto the photograph, in order to give a symbolic representation of our ancestors who are constantly watching over us and to present the pride, strength and beauty of my people. I am interested in broadening the conversation of portraiture in mainstream art and to present a nation that is generally unseen in popular culture.