Carolynn Lemke: Celebrating our Noble Friends

Alyssa Dearborn

Carolynn Lemke, the owner and illustrator behind Noble Friends Shop, has made a successful business out of illustrating people’s animal companions. Her work and products have appeared on the Today Show and she is making her children’s book illustration debut this November.

But hints of where she would take her artwork have always been a part of her experience as an artist.

“I always liked to draw people and pets and I tried to work that into every project I did. And then it just kind of segwayed into that” she said when asked about her beginnings as an illustrator, “My favorite thing is probably the fact that anything I am drawing, I get to put a personality into it. Whenever I’m drawing pets, the customer will email me three descriptor words about their dog or cat or horse or bunny or whatever, so I can kind of imagine their personality and I try to put that into the illustration itself. I’d say that’s the most fun, enjoyable part of it.” Her clients’ happiness is the driving force behind her work. “A lot of my clients who come to me, some had pets pass away or people are celebrating getting a new puppy,” she said. “So, I feel like even if the pet has passed away I’m still hoping to bring people joy by remembering their pet or by celebrating a new baby coming into the family.”

By taking her art and love for animals to the next level by illustrating a book, Lemke hopes that people will enjoy a beautiful book based on a true story and remember to take care of the pets in their lives.

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“The story is really cool.” she said when asked about the book, “It’s about a girl who goes down to the Dominican Republic - and she was already a dog lover - and they find this dog on the beach. You could feed the dogs there and they fed them hotdogs. So, the dog took the hotdog and buried it, and she was so upset because this dog thinks it’s not going to have food anymore. She’s not even eating the hotdog - she’s hiding it because she thinks she’s not going to have food. So they fall in love with this dog and they end up being able to adopt it. And they brought it back to New York City.”

“I really love this story.” she continued, “I sort of knew the author a little bit before we started working together. She is a huge dog lover and an advocate for adopting dogs. It was just such an awesome story.”

The publishing process itself was a new experience for Lemke. It took years to get the story illustrated, published, and then ready for readers in November.

“We found a publisher, which was step number one.” she said about the process, “And that was really cool because I have worked with publishers before, but on a completely different type of project. This was really an experience in itself, working with a publisher and just have everything be, like, super legit.”

It took about two years to illustrate this book start to finish. Once that was completed, it took a little more than a year to get the book printed and ready to be sold.

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“The whole process has been quite a while, but it was awesome,” she said. “And it was during COVID, so it was a little bit challenging because my kids were home from school. I had this massive deadline, so that was a little difficult. But other than that, it was cool.”

Projects such as her work with the book as well as her work with her clients has given Carolynn Lemke a unique way to support the welfare of animals, both globally as well as in her own life.

“I’ll do a lot of projects.” she replied when asked about her work helping animals, “The book for example, a percentage of the proceeds go to an organization called Global Strays for the first round of books that come out, and then we’re going to pick another organization.” “We’re always trying to give back in some way to help other animals that might not have the best life.”

One thing that Carolynn Lemke wants people to know is, despite her personal success, creating a business she loves took years of work and perseverance.

“I have been working on my own for about 11 years now and I started doing this when I got laid off from an advertising agency. And I feel like I kind of just been hustling for the last 11, 12 years,” she said. “I feel like Rome isn’t built in a day and there’s a lot of ups and downs of being an entrepreneur and a woman owned business. And also being a work-from-home mom. That’s pretty important to me too. It’s difficult and has its challenges, and it’s pretty rewarding too because I can be here for my kids and my animals.” SWM