:: About Karen Oakley
Watching clients’ faces light up when they see their space transformed into a warm, embracing expression of their imagination – and feeling their happiness fill the room – is pure joy for Karen Oakley. For herself as well as her clients, she understands the transformative, emotional impact art can have. As a featured accent or backdrop, art brings a sense of serenity, accomplishment and rightness to one’s daily life, and delight when sharing it with others.
Karen has been a professional faux painter since the mid 1990’s when the industry – through The Finishing School of New York – began offering water-based “green” products safe to handle and safe to use inside client’s homes and businesses.
Earlier in her career, Karen was an art therapist, working with children and adults in the mental health field, then as art director for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Collin County, Texas. Later, when her children were young, she offered her own art program, “Art in the Barn”. Located on a historic property in Stonington, Connecticut, Karen taught children art for seven summers. She’s most pleased when parents tell her, years later now, that they still have the art work their children created there.
A graduate of The Finishing School in New York, Karen also has a BA in Psychology from Bethany College. She has attended graduate school at Hahneman University, studying art therapy, and continues to perfect her art at the Rhode Island School of Design and The Finishing School of New York.
More About Faux Real Decorative Painting
Working in beautiful homes and inviting businesses up and down the coast of New England, Faux Real Decorative Painting has been featured in Traditional Home Magazine and Ink Magazine.
Faux Real has also worked with these fine establishments:
- Olde Mistick Village Art Cinemas, Mystic, Connecticut. Infused the original plain box entry with a sumptuous Art Deco air, using metallic plasters and glass etching techniques.
Delamar Southport Hotel, Southport Connecticut Working with interior designer Rebecca Hathaway, Karen transformed this boutique hotel’s traditional colonial fireplace into a French limestone-block hearth, and created a warm, chic French motif for the rest of the interior. In the Lobby, Karen applied a shimmering Mother of Pearl wall finish to serve as an inviting backdrop for the Delamar’s museum-quality modern art collection.- Ocean House, Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Working with interior designer Hilary Heminway, Karen used a "Flax" weave, created with soft plaster, in one of the condominiums.
- Stonington Vineyards, Stonington, Connecticut. Karen completely transformed the formerly plain interior into a sophisticated, welcoming retreat, and she resurfaced the once worn countertops with a beautiful, burnished copper/gold finish.
- Private yacht. Using custom wood graining, Karen turned a simple plastic salon table into a faux bois compass rose centerpiece.
- Other projects include Health in Harmony Organic Day Spa, Mystic; Peggy’s Cutting Crew Salon & Spa, Mystic; Home Wellness Center, Groton; and Fireside Brick Oven Creations, Gales Ferry, Connecticut.
- Five designer show houses in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Show houses can go way beyond the norm and let designers have fun with home interiors. In a New London, Connecticut show house for example, Karen created a lush, faux Persian rug on a turning wooden staircase!
