Who We Are

We are Stone in Shoe - Art that Irritates; a social enterprise committed to selling art that compels action and raises awareness about human trafficking and other forms of global injustice. Join us.

Stone in Shoe Logo

Hello everyone! My name is Jess, and I serve as the Creative Director for Stone in Shoe - Art that Irritates. Let me tell you a little about us. As mentioned above, we are a social enterprise that sells art. More specifically, we sell canvas-print images of high-quality photography that is not only visually stunning but also emotionally grating... not graphic, per se, but we want our prints to open the world's eyes to the injustice that occurs across the globe every single day. Like a stone in your shoe, we want our art to irritate. You do not acknowledge that a stone is in fact in your shoe and continue walking. You do something about it. You take action. William Wilberforce, an 18th century member of English parliament and social reformer, is credited with the following quote:

"You can choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know."

Human trafficking is a worldwide epidemic enslaving an estimated 27 million people. Part of the problem is poverty. Part of the problem is greed. Part of the problem is perversion. And part of the problem is a gross lack of awareness. That's where we come in.


According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, "[human trafficking] involves sexual exploitation of persons, predominantly women and girls, involving activities related to prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other commercial sexual services. [...] This growing transnational crime also includes forced labor and involves significant violations of labor, public health, and human rights standards worldwide. [...] Victims are often forced through physical violence to engage in sex-acts or to perform slavery-like labor. Such force includes rape and other forms of sexual abuse, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, psychological abuse, and coercion."


In short, every single day, all over the world, people are kidnapped or tricked into slavery by traffickers. The most targeted population consists of impoverished women and children. Victims are taken far from home, often to a place where they do not speak the language, and are forced into prostitution or other forms of slavery. In many cases, impoverished families sell their own children to pimps or traffickers in order to provide for the rest of their family. Human trafficking is different from other forms of illegal trade in that unlike underground weapons or drug trades, a human being is a "product" that can be sold again and again and again.


Twenty-seven million people are living this hell on earth every single day. And yet still many of us know so little about it. We want to change that. We want to give a voice to the voiceless, a face to the faceless, and we want to see the invisible chains of slavery broken. We can't all bust down brothel doors and set the captives free, but we can all do something. At Stone in Shoe, we sell images that irritate. Photography that compels action. Art that sets people free. We are Stone in Shoe. Join us.