With 2,500 products rotating through its grocery shelves, each Trader Joe’s has to churn out a good number of its signature cutesy price labels. In fact, the number’s so good that each TJ’s—including the West End location that opened early this month—must hire a a full-time, four-person art team to deal with it all. The way it works is a classic division-of-labor: two artists devote themselves to creating laminated labels, while one handles 3-D signage and the other tackles wall paintings.

But about two months before the store on 25th Street NW was up and running, the trained art professionals had a more long-term task for the location. Faced with an empty space, they were to create the feel of a Trader Joe’s—and more specifically, one fit for the nation’s capital. As quirky and droll as TJ’s private labels come across, the team of West End artists knew they had to be careful. They wanted to amuse us, pay respect to our home, but ran the risk of crossing some lines. In the realm of politically-tinged artwork, there’s a very fine distinction between satirical and offensive—especially in a town of rambunctious lawmakers, lawmakers’ assistants, and, well, people who take themselves and what they do very seriously. And most of that pressure, to get it right, fell on Cassandra Loomis, the artist in charge of wall murals.