~~Classic Velvet Paintings by Song Shen~~

Well, this is my first attempt at writing a blog. I’ve been told that it helps keep your name out there on search engines and I really want to get Song Shen exposed to the public. He deserves recognition and I hope will be well known some day.

My name is Keith Hayes and I represent (that sound so formal) Song Shen. I’m kind of like Barney Davis, an army buddy of Edward Leeteg, who started a gallery in Honolulu to sell Leeteg’s paintings after the war. Except this website is my gallery.

For those who don’t know, Leeteg is considered the father of classic velvet painting and is the inspiration for what I and Song Shen are trying to do. There once was a time when professional, gallery quality, black velvet paintings were being done. This was long before the boom in cheap, tacky, low brow velvet painting took over and ruined the respect early velvets had as true art.

My part in Song Shen’s art, rather than being just a pseudo gallery owner, is that I work hand in hand with him in choosing subjects and helping him develop his velvet skills by providing examples of classic velvet art.

Song Shen is new to velvet painting. He is a professional portraiture artist who until recently has specialized in oil on canvas. He has been painting for over 20 years and has had formal training and taught college level classes. He is a master artist whose paintings, in my opinion, rival the best of today’s formal painters.

But Song Shen is also a starving artist who is in constant need of work. He lives in Changsha City in Hunan Province, China, has a 4 year degree from Hangzhou Art University, taught for 2 years at Ludong University in Yantia, worked for a short time at the Marc Ecko Studio, and then went freelance in 1998. You would think that with such an extensive background as a painter he would be rather well off, but he is a Chinese painter. And the competition between Chinese artists for work is fierce.

Most of Song Shen’s work is for American middlemen who commission him to do portraits for photo studios. If you have had a professional sitting with a photographer you probably were offered to have your portrait turned into an oil painting – at a phenomenal price. But it is the photo studio that makes the money, not the artist. Song Shen is one of those poor artists. He is constantly looking for work and with the downturn in the economy he is struggling even more.

I’ll get into how Song Shen and I connected in my next blog. It is a really interesting story with many twists and turns.