Two new posters from the Chamomile Tea Party. Click on each of them for a close-up view. It's been pretty steamy here in Washington. But I'm not talking about the weather. Here in DC, we seem to live and breathe politics. It's not always our choice. Sometimes our jobs literally depend on what's going on on Capitol Hill. And, the rancor you might pick up out there is magnified over here. Political wrangling and rhetoric is pretty high right now as the Republicans and Democrats are jockeying for position. But it seems like they're jockeying more for the 2012 election than...

Today marks the first anniversary of an idea. One year ago today, as I was walking home from work, my brain gave birth to the Chamomile Tea Party. More specifically, I decided to take World War II-era propaganda posters and remix their words with commentary about the caustic state of contemporary American discourse. I remember exactly how it happened and exactly where I was when the idea hit me. I was let out of work early for the July 4th weekend. I took the Metro home and was walking the last mile to my house. Listening to NPR's All...

The latest poster by the Chamomile Tea Party (click image for larger view). Posters distill the essence of ideas or messages to their most economical form. You glance at a poster as you walk by the wood barricades of a construction site or, these days, as you peruse the walls of the Internet. When remixing someone else's poster as I've been doing with World War II-era propaganda posters for the Chamomile Tea Party, I'm initially attracted to the design and then to its message. Simple and direct is best. Then the real thinking begins. What do I want to say? What's my...

Jeff Gates, From a Series of One Acts… #7, 1987. Click on image for larger view. Before moving to the DC area I spent a year teaching art in Minnesota. I learned to drive in the snow that winter and am proud to have survived a week of -90F (-68C) windchill. But that pales by comparison to what the Mid Atlantic is going through right now (okay, what I'm going through right now). It's a blizzard out there and believe it or not, I think this storm is worse than the snowpocalypse that inundated us this past weekend. We've been off...

An East German Volkspolizei guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in East Berlin, 1974, © Jeff Gates. Click on image for a larger view. I am slowly unearthing photographs and memories from my 1974–1975 trip to Europe. I took this image at East Germany's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I remember thinking the pomp and circumstance of the East German soldiers as they marched in front of the monument reminded me of ours at Arlington Cemetery. While smoking was much more prevalent in both the East and West in the 1970s, I took notice of the large number of people...