When it comes to 1960s counterculture and poster art, David Lance Goines tops my list of heroes. A Berkeley, California printmaker, calligrapher, graphic artist and writer, Goines is aptly described as a “visual historian of a significant era.” Today, May 29, he would have been 80 years old.
Goines is often paired with Alice Waters, chef and owner of Chez Pannise. They were romantically involved for a time in the 1960s and continued on as lifelong friends. Together they activated an art and food movement that permeates our culture still today. Their collaborative work started as a weekly column for the San Francisco Express Times with recipes that Waters compiled and edited and Goines illustrated with linoleum cuts. In 1968 they gathered these pieces into a book-like portfolio called Thirty Recipes Suitable for Framing. It was a huge success and became seed money for the creative duo to each start their own businesses; St. Hieronymus Press for Goines and Chez Pannise for Waters. And each year their businesses came together for a poster Goines designed and printed to commemorate Chez Pannise’s birthday.
Goines died in 2023 at the age of 77.
As synonymous as Goines and Waters may be and as much as I admire them both, today is Goines’ birthday and it’s his work I wish to applaud. Of course, I love his posters, for which he’s most known. I’m also enamored by his style and the artistic way his posters communicate a message. But what I especially admire are his creative processes and artistic intensions. Here are a few of Goines’ insights we can apply to the many wonders of life.
“Just do things. If it doesn’t work, just change it and try again.”
When Goines purchased his print shop in 1968 (and Alice opened Chez Pannise in 1971, as Goines included), he had “zero knowledge” of the business world. “Basically, we felt we could do anything,” he told Laura McLaws Helms in this interview. “The host of errors we made would have probably stopped anybody else, but we were too young and excited to realize that we were doing things wrong. We didn’t know. This ignorance, plus no concept of failure, it just simply wasn’t there.”
Oh, the creative courage of young people! Perhaps this innocence and tolerance of newness is something we need to revisit.
“Work within your medium. If you’re given a chisel and a piece of stone, don’t make a stained-glass window.”
Goines is credited with a distinct, identifiable style, yet he designed within his parameters. In this interview, he explained how “a crappy printing press, the limitations of the camera we had, my relatively limited skills as a printer all combined to produce a style where I designed things I could print.”
I admire how Goines made good—really good!—with what he had. Using the clunky mechanisms of a 1954 single-color-offset lithographic press and the detailed persistence required to run it, he crafted poster after poster that are worth far more today than the fifty cents for which they originally sold.
“My job is to get your attention and keep it long enough for the message to get across.”
Goines described himself as a printer and a graphic artist of advertisements for Berkeley businesses and good causes. He knew who he was, what he did, and his purpose for doing so. He adamantly rejected the title of fine artist.
In the preface of his book The Poster Art of David Lance Goines, a 40-Year Retrospective, Goines wrote, “Think of my work as a pair of blue jeans. They’re meant for everyday use. If they get dirty, it’s okay. The dirt probably won’t show anyhow. As they fade, or get frayed or torn, they might even look better than when they were new. The older they get, the more comfortable they get. Of course you can’t wear blue jeans to the opera, but I’ll let someone else design evening wear.”
“I get an idea from somebody else’s artwork and I incorporate it into my own work.”
Though he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Goines never formally studied art and design. Instead, he followed the influence of his mother, an artist and calligrapher. He also studied other artists extensively and was influenced by movements such as the Jugendstil.
Inspiration vs. imitation is a touchy subject. Yet, when we study other artists it’s helpful in developing our own skills. It’s a way to simply appreciate their art. In Goines’ work, I note his consistent use of a strong central image together with a minimal amount of text. I find the way he outlines each element to be interesting and I’m in awe of the skill it took to align these individual color runs on his press. Several of his posters make use of visual puns, a humor many—namely me—would not have the wit, smarts, or ideation to execute.
Bu if we’re talking about imitating artists, here’s what I’d especially like to take from Goines; what Alice Waters wrote of him. “As I came to know him, I would realize it was not only the way he worked that attracted me, but also the very way he led his life. It struck me as an artful, simple way of living, of taking time, of doing things right.”
My own piece of Goines: The Hillside Club hangs in my office as a reminder of the power of women working together. When women gather, we change the world!