Chamomile Tea Party

We’re Losing Our Competitive Edge subway platform ad, Washington, DC Metro, Chamomile Tea Party.

I have always been interested in the power and intersection of propaganda and design. And World War II was a fertile era for both. Beginning in 2010, I started to remix old propaganda posters from that period and create new images with contemporary messages about the rancor that is prevalent in contemporary American political discourse.

Congress seems to have become paralyzed by partisan politics. There has been so much party rhetoric it is become virtually impossible to get any important legislation passed. And Americans are suffering. As an artist I wanted to create messages to the “powers that be” that we are hurting ourselves as a country and as a people. I also wanted to give the electorate something they could use to help voice their concerns. As we saw in Shepard Fairey’s 2008 portrait of Barack Obama, the visual can be a potent tool.

I have now published over 290 of these posters under the moniker of the Chamomile Tea Party in an effort to comment on American political discourse. The posters featured in a number of publications including The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and in PRINT magazine. They also appear in Jonathan Haidt’s book on the American political process: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion To understand the genesis of this work, read this interview in the Urban Times.

Take a look at all the posters on the Chamomile Tea Party website.