The Last Interview With Norm 'Love Letters' - Magzter

October 11, 2019—Norm dies. “Norm Will Rise” aka “@normloveletters” was an acclaimed tattooist and owner of Love Letters Tattoo studio in Los Angeles. It was surreal, and it’s hard to believe that he is no longer with us. The outpouring of comments came in countless numbers for Norm across the internet from family members, friends, colleagues and people who he deeply inspired…

- Adriana De Barros

It was just two weeks before that I had talked to him at the London Tattoo Convention, where he was smiling and tattooing a walk-in client, sitting in a tight booth next to his friend, Grace Neutral. She sometimes called him Eric (his real name: Eric Rosenbaum), who was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to the West Coast of California in the 1990s, and became a member of three distinguished graffiti crews: AWR, MSK, and TSL.

Norm spent his last year living-the-dream, traveling to tattoo events, bringing his graffiti and-Chicano-lettering style to locations like China and England. On the 7th of October, he commented: “I’m almost back from around the world. Wanna thank everyone for making this amazing trip”—he gave special thanks to Big Sleeps, El Whyner, Miki Vialetto, Jack Rudy, and others. Norm was grateful for the opportunities he had and the people in his life. Here’s what he had to say for himself just those few short weeks ago now:

You started doing graffiti in the late 90s. How did you get involved in that scene?

This story is from the Issue 309 edition of Skin Deep.

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