Wax: Ah, the Portrait of the Artist.

Rossetti: Now, see, I can only hope that that's actually some piece of his art work. I'm still obsessed with seeing something he's done.

I'm told it is. This seems to be from an article about his artisty whatnots or so I've surmised.

It adds a lot to my mental picture of him, thinking about him-as-artist. And why he gave it up, or didn't. Or changed modes. However you want to put it.

I don't know if he's given it up. It doesn't seem like he has. He's just got an actual career doing something else.

He seems like a generally artistic guy. But I would like to think that he paints. Still. A lot. Maybe has a little easel for Mingus, too.

But as to the pic itself - wow do we have a bevy of hotspots.

Okay, starting: tattoos, quite nicely visible there.

Yes! The tattoos, man. This is one that helps catalogue them. Also - we can really see the deatil of the Norman tattoo. Which . . . will eternally be a mystery. It continues to baffle me, yes.

Also, that scratch. Looks like the work of a cat. He has mentioned cats, so I shall assume it's a cat.

Yes, lets.

Yes, and I guess... hair colour. Looks darkish. As does his facial hair, in fact. So we'll just have to say dark brown is the real colour.

I love the hair. The glare is temperate, and moody. The chin scruff looks amazing. Also, this solves the hair debate. At certain points in time he must've been waxed. Or he must've sat around in the sun a LOT.

A LOT! But he wasn't that tanned! I mean, you get way tanned before your chest hair starts going pale, one would THINK.

Which is why I think there was some waxing involved. Which isn't quite a kink for me, but is still . . . interesting. Not many guys actually do get waxed.

Heh. Norman got Waxed.

Wax wishes.

"Norman gets Waxed" could be the title of the site.

Only not. Back to the evidence at hand! Collarbones! And with the arms.

I imagine his collarbones... yeah.

There's a really nice line there. And definitely some freckles.

Also, he has the t-shirt tan. You can see the corona of deeper suntan. It's all very bohemian looking.

He's a bit pale otherwise.

Wow, this is a great picture.

It is! The colours of the painting go very nicely with him. Or he goes with the colours.

He goes with that color very well. So maybe... he used that color because he wanted to paint himself into it. Who knows.

Or he just likes the colour. Or it's symbolic of something or other. Who knows! The feathers taped to the canvas, though. Heh.

Oohh. Symbolism. I like the feathers! That's symbolic! And pretty. And . . . tragic?

Well. I can't tell. Art critique has never been my gig. I'm mostly going, 'ooh, pretty.'

This is a good 'oohh, pretty' one on many levels.

There's a lot of pretty. And this is a very French artiste Norman here.

He looks like he's sitting between the woman's legs. That's pretty cool.

It's all very turpentine-smelling.

Oh, man - this is definitely my favorite Norman. You can hear the slight french accent just looking at him. And smell the absinthe.

So, does this mean he paints without his shirt on?

One can only hope. If he had a bit ol' red smear of ink, that would only make this better, man.

This is a very... raw? picture.

Yes. We haven't even talked about his expression. But raw covers it really well. He's less intimidating than usual. This isn't a glare. And it isn't the vulnerable look, either.

He seems a bit defensive, maybe.

It's just the kind of . . . 'I'm comfortable. Right here, right now, with who I am' look. But it also kind of asks 'are you?' in a very . . . open way.

Ahahah. Those were some rather opposing interpretations.

You have to be open.

Maybe he's thinking about lunch, who knows.

He's a bit smirking, too. He's daring you to open your mind.

...or drop to your knees!

Yeah, I can see the drop to your knees aspect.

well, I'm imagining the position: he's sort of leaning against the painting. So I'm having this little scene here, involving quite a lot of booze and some ... suggestions.

After some consideration, perhaps 'defiant' would be the expression.

That sounds about right.

Whatever it is, this is definitely one of my very favourite pics. He looks just precious and very, well, natural.