Carol's Bio

  

Carol Kemery began her career as an emergency room nurse in a busy inter-city hospital in Philadelphia. While working as a nurse and raising her family, she also discovered her hidden talent for creating a cozy and colorful home. Without any formal training, she created her own look in her own way.

In 1991, she established Great Walls, a high-end decorative painting company. Starting as a very small business, it quickly grew, as did Carol’s reputation as a leading decorative artist with a keen eye for color and design. She has completed commissions from Florida through New England for prominent designers such as Albert Hadley and celebrity clients including Bruce Springsteen. A room designed for Interior Designer and author, Donald Kauffman, was shown in the November, 2006 issue of Architectural Digest. Her studio designed and produced a decorative finish for lighting that now hangs in Hollister stores throughout the country.
Carol studied her passion at schools throughout the country for several years.  In 1994, she found her home at The Finishing School, NY, the oldest and one of the most prestigious schools in the country. After studying with Robert Marx, author of Professional Painted Finishes, Carol joined the faculty and later established a permanent teaching studio in Pennsylvania for The Finishing School.  Bob and Carol have collaborated on a number of prestigious projects in New York including the Russian Tea Room, Sushi Samba, Bubba Gump Restaurants as well as the Revlon building.

 

Her reputation grew as her students from all over the world return again and again to experience her warm, approachable and humorous manner. She is considered by many the leading artist in the nation teaching her work with Schaibin, a fragmented gilding material. Her work and teaching methods have been featured by national trade publications PWC Magazine and Faux Effects World. She has been invited as a guest instructor at teaching studios in Houston, TX, Atlanta, GA and Baltimore, MD. Carol has presented at numerous shows throughout the country, including the Stencil Artisans League International (SALI) in San Diego, CA and Baltimore, MD; American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), Baltimore, MD; Meeting of the Masters, Boca Raton, FL and Faux Expo, New York, NY.

 

Professional decorative painters depend upon her professional, supportive and decorative advice on a daily basis.

Carol’s designs and techniques are used all over the country through her innovative subscription program. Carol develops custom decorative finishes, along with step by step photo instructions, that professional decorative painters and designers sell to clients. The Custom Subscription Series has been used by more than 600 professional decorative painters, throughout the country.

Carol and her husband Al work together in their painting business. They have four children, Katie, Rachael, Elizabeth and Peter and reside in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They recently designed and built a reproduction, Early American farmhouse that has been the site of catalog and magazine shoots.