Blog - Chelsea Thompto

Image with a dithered green to purple gradient background and bloack text reading: ...aesthetically minded online experiences that resist the mindset of “more is better.”

Towards More Sustainable Web Experiences

Aug 26, 2022

As I state on my about page, this site was designed and coded by me with some particular parameters in mind...

Image depicting am ascii design of the initials 'CT' in white text on a black background.

Writing Code Nobody Will See

Oct 5, 2021

Nobody, or should I say very few people, will see the above image if and when I implement it into my work. The image above is generated in the console of a web browser...

Routine Insecurity

Feb 18, 2021

Last week, I had the opportunity to take part in CAA 2021 as a panelist and session chair. The conference, like so many in the last year or so, was hosted virtually in response to COVID-19...

Image of a virtual space with an orange sky and a black floating retangle with white and pink text.

As I begin to write this, my newly adopted home of Silicon Valley had its first glimmer of blue sky in a week. Not clear mind you and not healthy to breathe, just not quite so orange/brown/grey. I am writing this as I am finishing the virtual installation of...

I am a trans artist, not a queer artist.

Jul 30, 2020

In the last few years, I have been met with the same dilemma over and over again within the art world: Curators, fellow artists, institutions, and organizations that want to understand me and my work through the lens of queer theory in place of trans theory...

White text on gradient blue background that says 'WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME'

Watching You Watching Me: Transgender Day of Visibility

Mar 31, 2020

For a long time now, I have been skeptical of the benefits of visibility or at the very least I have been leery about the personal costs of being visible as a trans person. When I talk about this hestiance, (non-trans) people tend to assume it is because of lingering...

White text on a purple background that reas 'What does responsible pedagogy look like during a cataclysm?'

On Pedagogy and Cataclysm

Mar 17, 2020

Last week the university I teach at (like so many across the country) cancelled classes and is transitioning to online teaching in response to COVID-19. So over the past 4 days, I have been scrambling to figure out what to do with little guidance...

White text on a green background that reads 'Being able to use Photoshop proves you are no more digitally literate than being able to fill in a Mad Libs proves your ability to write in full sentences.'

What is Digital Literacy?

Jan 5, 2020

I have heard a lot of talk in art departments and on campuses in general about teaching "digital skills" or "digital literacy", whether it is necessary, what it entails, how to standardize it, and etc.. In most of these conversations, I have noticed that the assumed meaning of these phrases...

What I Say When I Say What I Shouldn't

Nov 26, 2019

What do we sacrifice on the altar of political expediency...

Black and white image of a medical diagram with text caption.

Bone Deep

Nov 4, 2019

I have recently started a new series of work titled Bone Deep. The series will consist of 10 editions of 10 made using a pen plotter on paper and will combine medical illustrations relating to various procedures commonly linked to gender transition and my own writings...

TransAction

Oct 28, 2019

2021 UPDATE: This project had been put on hold indefinitely.

Back in 2017 during grad school I had this idea to start a zine titled TransAction, the idea then was that it would be a resource zine for and about trans folks making work about their experience in artistic and scholarly ways...

Thinking (Generously) Through Non-Binary Visibility and Attending to Difference

Oct 21, 2019

Over the past few months, I have witnessed a pretty sharp increase in conversations surrounding the visibility of non-binary folks...

Welcome (and why I am starting a blog)!

Oct 21, 2019

I have decided to start a blog on my site as a way to shift some of the thoughts and work I am sharing via other platforms (Instagram, Facebook, and etc.) to a place where I have both more control over how the content is used and more freedom...