Through the twists and turns of her life, a constant for Jennifer Kay DVM’05 has been her unwavering passions for animals, art and storytelling.
While completing her DVM degree at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Kay (then Rodriguez) identified room for improvement in the imagery used to teach veterinary medicine.
“As a visual learner, I had a hard time envisioning a circle drawn on the chalkboard as a cow’s stomach,” Kay says.
To fill her need for higher-quality visuals, Kay began drawing diagrams in her notes and using them to study. In her fourth year, Kay’s illustrations reached a new audience, and she used drawings to help clients at UW Veterinary Care understand their pet’s condition or treatment options.
In one case, Kay drew a heart diagram to describe to a client the surgery their puppy would need to fix a heart defect.
“The second I drew the heart, the tension in the room plummeted,” Kay recalls. “I transitioned from thinking I wanted to do drawings for students to realizing there is a real need for educational materials for clients, too.”
Throughout the remainder of her clinical year, Kay illustrated for many of the cases she was on, and other doctors started pulling her in to visualize concepts and procedures for their clients, too.
One day while on a clinical rotation, Robert Hardie looked over her shoulder and saw Kay’s illustrations in her notebook. Hardie, currently a clinical professor of small animal surgery, recognized her potential and encouraged Kay to pursue medical illustration as a career.
With the support of Hardie and William Gengler (the associate dean for clinical affairs at the time), Kay got approval to pursue an externship in medical illustration.
Kay had a leg up on her peers when applying to graduate school for medical and scientific illustration. Having a medical background made her a highly qualified candidate, and she enrolled as one of a small cohort at the University of California-Santa Cruz shortly after completing her DVM degree.
After art school, Kay’s medical and science illustration work spanned from diagrams for research papers on whooping crane surgical techniques to animal drawings for the National Wildlife Health Center to coloring book illustrations for the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association.
“The visual arts can convey complex ideas accurately and efficiently,” Kay says. “Scientists and doctors don’t always know how to translate what they’re doing to the general public or business investors, and I loved being that bridge.”
When the 2008 recession hit, her scientific and medical illustration commissions dried up. Leaning on support from family and friends, Kay stepped away from art and, as she describes, “a whole other version” of her life started. She was married and moved to the Twin Cities, where she resides today.
In a burst of creativity while pregnant with her son several years later, Kay created her first scratchboard pet portrait – created by etching into a wooden board covered in clay and a layer of black ink, revealing the white clay below.
The portrait was a housewarming gift for her friend, featuring his husky/German shepherd mix, Kilo. On a whim, she entered the piece into the annual art exhibition at the 2016 Minnesota State Fair – it was accepted from a pool of over two thousand applicants.
What started as a small endeavor for family and friends has since grown into a stable business. Now, Kay is typically booked out months in advance for her pet portraits.
And, though not a practicing clinician, Kay continues to use many of the skills she learned at the School of Veterinary Medicine in her business today.
“I can’t tell you how often I think about what muscles and tendons are underneath the skin as I’m creating a portrait,” Kay says. “The animal’s bone structure and anatomy dictate what we see on the surface.”
This knowledge, Kay explains, is what brings accuracy and authenticity to her animal portraiture.
Kay excelled at interacting with clients in vet school, winning the Eberhard Rosin General Surgery Award in her fourth year, an honor recognizing her strong technical and interpersonal skills. Because around half of the portraits Kay creates are of animals that have passed away, she regularly uses the social skills she developed at the SVM in her art business.
“The tools that I gained in working with people’s emotions in the exam room are the same ones that come up when consulting with a client about their portrait,”
Kay says.
Listening to client stories is a vital part of Kay’s process – allowing her to add character and emotion to the scratchboard piece.
“I put the stories the client tells me into the portrait as I create it,” Kay explains. “And possibly the most satisfying thing is when somebody sees their portrait and they tell me I got their pet exactly right.”
Maddie Arthur
This article was featured in the Winter 2023-24 issue of On Call magazine.