Carole Akins

First, there was Whiskers. Then Lenny, Betty, Harvey, and Mona. Now, it’s Lily, Cleo, and Ozzy.

For painter and Anthropologie collaborator Carole Akins, furry family members have always been a beloved part of the household.

Dogs and cats feature prominently in her artwork, which brings to life little slices of the everyday, full of charisma and magic. Friends dine at a café as pups sit underfoot, a woman shops for shoes while her poodle looks on – people and pets share center stage.

Carole, who lives and works in Southern California (with frequent jaunts to the South of France), recently created a special-edition series of pet paintings to grace our newest kitchenware capsule. It’s “their eyes, mostly,” that draws her to painting dogs and cats, she says. “Their mannerisms. They are like people with completely unique quirks and personalities and sometimes what feels like a true sense of humor.”

She’s especially committed to rescue animals – all of Carole’s family pets have been adopted, and the act of offering pets a safe, happy forever-home is what she says inspired this collection. “There’s something very fulfilling about giving them the very best second life,” she says. As an only-at-Anthro twist, several of the collection’s subjects belong to our very own Home Office team members: Duke, the brown, floppy-eared dog, to Chris Sotz, Anthropologie’s General Merchandise Manager for Home; Sadie, the black-and-white dog, to Anna Jablonski, our Product Development and Production Coordinator; and Stella, the grey cat, to Cat Friscia, an Associate Designer for Tabletop. Each pet left an impression on Carole with his or her particular charms – and all are much-adored rescues.

Carole’s artwork, whether of pups or the wider cast of players who populate her colorful daydreams, speaks to fans and collectors with its chic joie de vivre. Painting is Carole’s career, and her calling. But she first joined the working world not as a painter but as an interior designer, with studio art as a just-for-her side pursuit. Working as a designer “was a period of time and a medium I really loved, and still do,” she says. “Painting was a natural progression for me. Its call got more and more persistent, and as my family grew up, I had more time to answer.”

“I always knew that creativity would be a big part of my life,” says Carole. “As a child, making art was my favorite thing to do.”

Carole’s artwork is visual, but her process sounds a lot like storytelling. First, she mentally outlines an overall theme or idea. Then come the characters. “I take a lot of inspiration from interesting photos or magazines or billboards, or people just walking around, and I think of what their character could be within that framework,” Carole explains. Like in drama or fiction, she says, she lets the characters reveal themselves, “with all their quirks and attributes,” as the painting evolves.

“It’s always a surprise,” she says.

You could layer on paint strokes forever, so how does Carole know when a piece is done? In her words: “I get to a point where the story feels told.”

The joy and lightness that shine through each story, she says, can be traced to her California roots.

When Carole was young, her family moved to the Sunshine State from Illinois in quite a spontaneous way: “It started as a vacation to see my aunt, and we simply never went back.” (It’s true: Her mother returned by train, packed up, and sold their house.) “That sense of escape never really wore away, and I always associated living here with being on an extended vacation, with all its light and air and color,” says Carole.

Today, she works in a studio illuminated by windows and skylights, set in a “funky village atmosphere,” near an old cannery. To create there, she says, “feels wonderful".

It turns out another oasis for Carole is close to our hearts: her local Anthropologie store, in Newport Beach, California. “I have often thought I could literally live there,” she tells us. (It’s not the first time we’ve heard that!) “The vibe is so stimulating with the colors and patterns and interesting curation, like a porthole to another world.”

Like us, Carole believes in seeking and sharing beauty every day. In addition to making her own art, she spent ten years leading therapy workshops for people dealing with cancer at a hospital in her community. “The people there are so wonderful and I loved watching them unleash themselves with creative abandon,” she remembers. “Despite what many would expect, it was a joyful, happy place.”

Art is powerful, she says, and creative pursuits can help all of us weather a storm. But if oils or watercolors aren’t your thing, life’s joys are still yours for the tasting. Look around. Take it in. Jot down what makes you smile, or laugh, or wonder.

“Spend your precious time doing things you love with people you love,” she says. “And don’t save champagne only for special occasions.”

So join us for a toast – to good dogs, great art, and the people and places that sometimes, if even for a moment, make life feel like a vacation.