Remembering Craig Gosling
Tim Phelps,Jane Watson, Tom Weinzerl, and Gary Schnitz |
Craig Gosling (August 1936 - July 2021)
Medical Illustrator and AMI Emeritus member, Craig Gosling, passed away at his home in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 11, 2021. Some AMI members share some heart-felt comments about their good friend and mentor.
Craig Gosling took me under his wing when I was a young pharmacology graduate student in 1976, and gave me personal art instruction to help me prepare a portfolio for admission to one of the medical illustration graduate programs. I worked for him for several years creating charts, graphs, and 3D models during the day. After work, he stayed late to help instruct me. I learned a considerable amount from him during that time, and I owe him so much for helping me launch my career. Tim Phelps came along after me, and later Brent Bauer, while I was still working for Craig. Many more students came through Craig's shop on their way to graduate school, but I was the first. For that, I feel quite honored. The Medical Illustration Department at Indiana took on Craig's personality, which was very high-spirited and fun-loving. We worked hard, but Craig always made time for joking around and having fun when time allowed! Sometime later, I participated in the "Prairie Bone Companion Show," the farewell bon voyage event at the AMI in 1987 in Minneapolis. Craig was hilarious that evening, and those of us who were there will never forget it. In more recent years, Craig made several important donations to our Biomedical Visualization program at UIC. Receiving his life's work meant so much to me. Always humble, Craig never thought that much of his line art and rarely, if ever, entered anything in the AMI Salon. However, his work is stunning, and it belongs right up there with the great pen & ink artists of our profession. I'm not sure he ever realized just how grateful we are to have received this gift. Of course, receiving the Medical Illustration Library from his Indiana Department was equally as touching, especially since it contains many of Craig's personal textbooks. I will always be grateful to Craig for his contributions to our program, our profession, and to me personally. I will miss him greatly.
John Daugherty
I had been working in South Bend, Indiana, at South Bend Memorial Hospital as a program coordinator, and had been looking into 3 different areas of graduate school: art administration, art therapy and medical illustration. One of my best friends was a PTA (Physical Therapy Assistant) and had left to go to PT school at IU in Indianapolis. She had written me about the Medical Illustration Department at IUPUI. She gave me Craig's name and that was my first introduction to Craig Gosling. There are too many Craig stories to tell. When a job came open in the department he offered it to me. When the first Macintosh computer was built, he made sure the "team" talked about it and then bought the first SE. It was back by my desk and he said, learn it and use it. So I did, PageMaker 1.0, CricketGraph 1.0, etc. He was the most astute businessman, and his enthusiasm for learning and curiosity just made for a great place to work and learn. He worked after hours doing caricatures for the various departments when doctors or administrators would leave. He made plaques - all these things he really did for us. My first AMI meeting was in Cincinnati in 1984, and Craig said I should go and take some courses during the workshop days. So I signed up for an Al Teoli life drawing course. For the AMI San Diego meeting Craig said, "Deb If you make the signs I will get you to the meeting." If I was ever working late, so was Craig. Nothing was ever in writing, but you knew his word was golden. I got to San Diego, put the signs up and all was well. I wasn't even in graduate school yet, but he made sure I had opportunities. So what were all those caricatures about… the departments paid for those and that money was used to send us to meetings. He didn't have to do it, but that was Craig; he was always giving a hand-up. Never a hand-out, but a hand up. We worked hard, but we played hard, from the "Beakhead" volleyball team to the annual Joe Demma Duck-Pin Bowl Off. I still have my "fantasy" trophy of the wind-up King Kong that spits sparks when it walks. The dressing up for Halloween - pictures that will never see the light of day - but we thought we were funny, and we were. Pranks he played on me, and I did get him back once. The fact that after he sent me off to graduate school at Michigan, he drove up with John Nixon to my graduate show. That was Craig; once you were in his family, it was for life. AMI was lucky to have had him as a member. I know I consider him as one of the great influences of my life. RIP Poppa 2.
Deb Haines
My chosen professional, leadership, and teaching career would not have been possible without Craig Gosling - my first and probably most important mentor. As a young liberal arts small college art major graduate who wanted to become a scientific illustrator, I was directed to the Medical Illustration Department at the IU Medical Center in Indianapolis by my oldest brother, a radiologist. I visited Craig passing through Indianapolis wearing improper interview attire: faded green army pants, green and white Adidas shoes, and a T-shirt inscribed "Drink Tree Frog Beer" showing a lounging robust amphibian with a beer can in its hand smiling at the viewer. Craig said, "Come back with a coat and tie and we can talk!" I was back the next day. This is where I began the long path to my goal starting as a chart and graph artist creating images with an ink ruling pen and a typewriter. With Craig as its director, the department became a fertile ground for many medical illustrators with the same desires to make themselves ready and worthy to progress to graduate study. Under Craig's encouraging and watchful eye, each of us was given opportunities to provide some simple anatomy drawings for a few of the department's clients, while getting artistic reviews, apt critique and confidence from Craig for preparation for our hopeful graduate study travels ahead. Four current medical illustrators, who I identify with as important friends and colleagues, include 2 individuals who I shared art duties with at IU from 1977 to 1979. Brent Bauer, who became a faculty member with me at Johns Hopkins in 1986 for 10 years, before later becoming a dentist (and renowned undersea artist); and John Daugherty who went to the University of Michigan graduate program in Medical and biological Illustration a year before I attended, and became the Director of the University of Illinois' Medical Visualization program a few years ago, after a long and successful career as a premier freelancing medical illustrator. Two others, also mentored in the department by Craig, were Deb Haines and Lydia Kibiuk, who have been extremely successful in their medical illustration careers as well. I know there are OTHERS! Craig's pen and ink style was casual and spontaneous and seemed to ooze extreme confidence in its mark making. It seemed effortless in his hands, but as we come to find out, pen and ink is not an easy medium to master. As with all art influences, we individually identify with works that we either want to excel in or have an affinity for, embracing a style that wells up in each of us, that speaks to us, and then becomes us! It however takes Hours upon Hours of PRACTICE and PRACTICE. Over time we pick and choose and look for common artistic ground and then add it to our individual expression. There is where the confidence lies in the simplicity of identifying your own voice and seeing the new-found magic flow from your fingertips, as the desired imagery appears. Joy Soon Follows! For pen and ink style and many other things, I am thankful and forever grateful to Craig Gosling for his mentorship, friendship, and his inclusiveness to all who have met him.
Tim Phelps
The opportunity to work in Craig Gosling's department at Indiana University School of Medicine was absolutely life-changing for me. I started as a department volunteer during the summer after my freshman year in college. My desk was right outside Craig's office, and he was so generous with his time and assistance, no matter what I was working on. He would demonstrate different techniques for me, and then encourage me to practice between assignments. I still have the Gerald Hodge pen and ink practice sheet he gave me to use, as well as a quick watercolor of a white rat that he did. Craig developed a department that was so diverse; it was an opportunity to learn something new every day. I had the chance to work with graphic designers, slide presentation specialists, medical photographers, medical illustrators and a medical sculptor/medical simulator designer. He also developed a department that was a tremendous amount of fun — Halloween costume contests, Christmas parties and Indy 500 pitch-ins. Craig was also such a strong advocate of the AMI, encouraging me to go to my first meeting in Cincinnati. I was only able to go for the Salon opening, but he introduced me to so many welcoming and wonderful members, I knew I just had to be a part of that group. Thank you, Craig, for helping me on the path to this career that I love so much — I am eternally grateful!
Jane E. Watson
I met Craig through the Association of Medical Illustrators. We both received our training at the program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. I got the chance to know him well at the AMI's annual meeting in 1996 in Orlando, Florida. One night during the meeting, the graduates from each program would gather for an alumni event. That evening Craig and I talked for quite some time. During the conversation Craig mentioned that he was looking for an assistant director for an open position in his department here at the school. We discussed the position and he persuaded me to come out for a visit. I did, and I met Gretchen and their two parrots, Daisy and Dorian. Daisy loved to say Craig's name. Long story short, I became the assistant director for the Department of Medical Illustration. Once I started working in the department, it was easy to notice how natural Craig was at being a director. He had great rapport with faculty, researchers and staff. He grew the department as new technologies emerged and hired staff to manage the workload. In the seven years that I worked with Craig, what I remember most is his love of teaching. He gave presentations on the History of Medical Illustration, which included references to paintings on cave walls showing the heart and entrails from bison. He also included images from Galen, one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity who influenced the development of various disciplines including anatomy, physiology and pathology. Craig admired Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius and included them in his presentation. Craig used some of the teaching models and simulators in a presentation to the first-year medical students, and he had the most fun demonstrating how the models could help in determining a diagnosis. He loved answering the student's questions. At the request of the director of the Plastic Surgery Division, Craig created a course for the plastic surgery residents giving them an opportunity to develop drawing skills to increase their observational skills. They drew ears, noses, eyes and mouths. They learned symmetry. Craig had portraits taken of the residents. The residents would take two prints (one print was flipped), draw a midline through the center of the faces, and then cut them apart. Then they would put the two together to create two new faces. This showed how asymmetrical their faces were and created some interesting images. Craig would give workshops at the annual AMI meetings on molding and casting. We would gather the materials as well as some of the models, pack them in a suitcase and off he'd go to the meeting. He would use his lesson plan to teach and demonstrate techniques for casting a face or an ear. He encouraged questions and interaction. Craig received two awards that honored his contribution to education, one from the Association of Medical Illustrators called the Max Brödel Award of Excellence in Education, the other award called the Ranice W. Crosby Distinguished Achievement Award from Johns Hopkins. Craig showed his knack for teaching at the Indianapolis Center of Inquiry, where he taught English courses to immigrants. Lastly, I want to comment about Craig's mentoring of students, who were interested in Medical Illustration. Because we were called the Department of Medical Illustration, we always had inquiries about medical illustration as a career. Craig loved the opportunity to talk about the field. He would talk with the students and often encourage them to apply to one of the programs. He also had inquiries from students at Indiana University at Bloomington. He worked with faculty on the campus to develop an independent study curriculum. He would travel to Bloomington twice a year to meet with students. In conclusion, working with Craig was a time I will always cherish. I learned quite a bit from him, and am grateful I had the opportunity to know this man.
Tom Weinzerl
It's an honor for me to conclude this remembrance article and to write a brief message about Craig Gosling. He was simply known as "Craig" to most AMI members, never actually needing a last name for identification. He was that well known. He was many things to me... a good friend, a mentor, and colleague. When my wife and I moved from Springfield, Illinois, to Indianapolis in 1984, Craig and Gretchen were the first to reach out, warmly welcoming us to the Hoosier state. Craig would call often just to see how I was doing, and we would frequently have lunch, whenever I was on the IUPUI campus. Through the years that followed, I could count on Craig for his advice, his humor, and wit. He loved so many people and so many things in his life, including his dear wife and family, his friends at the Indianapolis Center for Inquiry, and the faculty and staff of the Indiana University School of Medicine. He cherished his chosen profession as a medical illustrator. He also loved the University of Illinois BVIS program, and, of course, the Association of Medical Illustrators. He was devoted to his students, his interns, and his coworkers, many of whom he mentored and coached, as they advanced through their educational coursework and professional careers as medical illustrators. Nothing made Craig more proud than to have provided an early foundation for these talented individuals to build upon. On a very personal note, during the last 10 years, I have lost both of my parents, a cousin, some of my high school and college friends, as well as a few AMI colleagues. But losing a colleague and close friend like Craig, well… this one really hurts.
Gary Schnitz
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