ARTS encore

Evelyn Greathouse

Veterinarian finds her artistic inspiration at work Lisa Mackinder

Brian Powers

by

W

hen you walk into Lakeview Animal Hospital in Portage, you can’t help but notice a large portrait of a formidable-looking black horse that hangs behind the office’s reception desk. It’s the artwork of Evelyn Greathouse, who is known by clients here as veterinarian Dr. Evelyn Bartlett. Greathouse has been rendering animal and human subjects in her pastels since 1996, in addition to working as an animal doctor and co-owner of Lakeview Animal Hospital. In fact, many pieces of Greathouse’s work hang in the animal clinic examination rooms and are not only appreciated by clients but have caught the attention of others. The large pastel portrait of the horse is a copy of the original, which was commissioned by Dr. David Ramsey, a veterinary ophthalmologist in Williamston who asked Greathouse to create this likeness of his Friesian horse, Ivan, as a surprise for his wife. Ramsey, who himself moonlights as an artist, carving sculptures of horses from exotic burl wood, found Greathouse after one of her pastels appeared on the cover of the

36 | Encore MARCH 2016

Evelyn Greathouse with a feline patient, top right, creates portraits in pastels including many of animals. Top left: Boone, which Greathouse made of a friend’s pet that recently died. Bottom: Ivan, a commissioned work of a Friesian horse.

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) in 2011. Each month the journal features an original piece of art on its cover, and Greathouse had

submitted for consideration a pastel of a chocolate Labrador retriever titled Jake. For two years she heard nothing. Then one day while Greathouse was seeing patients, her