About

VGoT is an art project posing as a propaganda campaign for new, American homefront values. The message style draws from American mid-century homefront propaganda, and the messages essentially draws from 21st century needs as found in the current environmental sustainability movement. The campaign is designed to access America’s history of ingenuity to overcome adversity, and apply those values to fighting modern problems.

The resulting artwork is a series of propaganda-style poster images, that are either hand screenprinted, painted, or offset printed.

I'm Joe Wirtheim and I've been making these images since 2005. I now live and work in Portland, Oregon.

Back Story

I wanted to create a design problem for myself. A self-initiated design project that would let me experiment with design, form, and content. The project idea had to be something I had interest in, felt passionately about, and had timely interest to the audience. Basically, I wanted to make art, but I wanted it to have meaning and be something that could be talked about.

Hence, the "Victory Garden of Tomorrow: New American Propaganda." It began suddenly as doodles, sketches, and writing in my notebooks. I was reading lots, and rode my bicycle everywhere - which led to strong feelings about urban design and culture. I wondered about my city and how it became this way, and where we were going with it. For example, the way the streets were arranged to inhibit anything but cars and trucks, how so much land was vacant, trashed, wasted it seemed. How people seemed depressed, unhealthy, without energy.

This was just in 2004 in Columbus, Ohio, when political debates were going strong. I think this is when I decided I wanted the art to influence or propagate these ideas of a simple living. I started reading some history and looking up period poster art, and fell in love with the idea of the "victory garden". The history of it is so simple and charming - I especially liked the active voice in the poster art, like: "Help Harvest" or "Can all you Can" about canning vegetables for winter. These were all very classic folk activities, doing things like growing vegetables, canning them. There were others like collecting salvaged steel, aluminum, and rubber which I felt was perfect - its like not only going back to classic folk values, but then cleaning up the industrial mess that we appear to buried in.

I enjoyed the charm of the active-voice propaganda, like a mother telling you to eat your vegetables - who can argue with that? Planting a garden, riding a bike, and just getting up and doing something. I found out that kind of art is called "agit-prop" or agitational propaganda, because it persuades the audience to get up and do something, not just change their minds.

For me, its been a great amount of fun, and I've learned so much about art, design, and process - and I've got a lot more to learn yet. There are plenty more ideas, and thanks to the support of many friends and fans of the work I can keep it going. Thanks!