Goodbye Chelsea Thompto

Chelsea Thompto, preparing for Embodying, now at the Sac State Library

The first thing that you notice when you walk into Chelsea Thompto's studio is how it smells. It smells strangely...good.  The delightful perfume of burned wood, chai tea, beeswax, and pine resin, is the pleasant side effect of the simple natural materials that she is using to make her art.  Most studio spaces are more aromatically challenged, mine included.  A cursory look around definitely confirms that a mad scientist is in residence. Experiments abound, her passions transfigured into an assortment of unique and powerful artistic statements.  Nylons tied to Redwood bark spells mysterious and cryptic messages. Rubbings of wood lie in piles.  Even a quick look around piques my curiousity.  Chelsea Thompto's art is definitely some of the most unique and current I've seen in Sacramento.
       I first met Chelsea in a sculpture class. She was the grad student assistant. I was immediately impressed by her suggestions, critique, and competence working with a huge array of materials and tools. But even better, here was another member of the LGBTQ community to talk to about art in a meaningful way.   From our conversations, I felt like I entered new levels of awareness of myself and my own art practice.  Through our conversations I realized I had been ignoring my homosexuality as influence on my work; I had simply come to take it for granted.  Getting to know Chelsea and the issues related to being a Trans-person opened my eyes to just how far we still have to go in the fight for equality.
        As a Trans-person, Chelsea has to deal with much more on a daily basis than most people can even imagine. When you're Trans, discrimination is a day to day reality.  We live in a country that has only recently begun to embrace LGBTQ people. Many gays, like myself, are now fixtures in contemporary mainstream culture. Being gay isn't really a major contemporary topic of conversation anymore; I feel largely accepted, for better and for worse, into the fold. But being a Trans-person is different. Trans people still face opposition and bigotry from a large segment of the US. Case in point, the bathroom law that was recently passed in North Carolina.

anti-Trans propoganda sticker

This reality is transfigured into Chelsea's work.  Her pieces focus on her identity, and how we perceive others and ourselves.  Thompto uses a code, completely of her own device, that acts as a buffer between her art and the viewer. The code, beautiful in it's own right when written, is a complex vehicle for interaction between Thompto and the viewer.  Understanding it requires some time and critical analysis; things we all too often don't make time for anywhere.  Through the cerebral process of decryption, we open ourselves to recognize the love of understanding that is shared by all people. Her work invites us to be a part of the art, where the participant is the critical link in completion of each piece.

Embodying, Chelsea Thompto 2016

       This work has culminated in her current MA show entitled Embodying, currently on display in the Sacramento State Library Gallery.  The show comprehensive, meticulous, striking, and powerful. Those mad scientist experiments culminated in a luminous volume of work that speaks to me on the deepest level. Yes, Chelsea Thompto is making important art.

Power Word: (Trans) written in the code

        But she's leaving. Moving on the get her MFA in Madison, Wisconsin, where she will also be teaching. They will be very lucky to have her. And while her leaving is a blow to hte Sacramento art scene, she has left an indelible mark on me and my art.  Her passionate creativity will be missed, but I am so glad that she will be out there making art.