1992 Virginia Leeming
"Hair today art tomorrow".
The Vancouver Sun

Hair today, art tomorrow. Pass by 3619 W.4th on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday and you're likely to see Gideon Flitt hard at work painting one of his large canvases. But on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday you'll not the artist snipping with scissors at a client's hair. At The Room, this studio/gallery-cum-hair salon, the walls are hung with several of the 13 canvases Gideon (who goes by his first name only) has painted.
On the ceiling an old fashioned typewriter is suspended upside down. And alone the windowsill is a collection odd old electric irons that have been gathered for his next work-a braid of irons resembling a braid or garlic or onions. Gideon took his hairstyling training in London, but is a self-taught painter and interior decorator. He says he tried decorating to take a break from hairdressing but gave it up in favour of painting, which he does with impressive talent. His grandfasther was also a painter.
The paintings, he says, are part of a series on sexual domination. They feature a man's nude body in various poses, including the fetal position. He works from his own photographs and is his own model.
When cutting hair, he says, he sizes up a client for the image she should project. He says he never does the same look twice, and a client's hairstyle evolves just as the woman herself changes throughout her life.
He says he doesn't call himself a hairdresser, or an artist.
And if a customer is stressing, he'll give her a shoulder massage and play the cello that leans on the wall at the back of the salon.Or is it the gallery?