“I’m the product?” I tease him. “You know who you sound like …”
“There’s a difference between creating a fake version of yourself for market,” Cole says, sternly, “and simply understanding how to show people who you really are.”
Cole encourages me to dig out my old Pentacon and take photographs of my paintings in progress, before they’re perfected, before they’ve even fully taken shape. I photograph myself at work, in moments of frustration, even breaking down in front of the canvas, laying on the floor.
I photograph myself in front of the gloomy plate-glass windows, thick with fog, tracing my finger through the steam.
I photograph myself eating lunch, food scattered amongst the paints, hands filthy on my sandwich.
When I need a break from painting, I pose naked and streaked in paint. Wearing a sunburst crown of paintbrushes, swaddled in a canvas drop-sheet like the Madonna.
The pictures are moody and grainy. Sometimes melancholy, sometimes charged with ethereal beauty.
I don’t worry about my privacy or if I might look unhinged. I post the pictures and I tell the truth about my mental state, for better or for worse, as I update my progress on the new series.
At first I’m mostly doing this for myself, a digital diary.
I have few followers, and most of the interaction comes from friends and old roommates.
Slowly, however, I start to pick up more friends. At first, it’s people I’ve begun to follow myself: a girl who sews hand-drawn patches onto vintage shirts. A guy with phenomenal spray-painting techniques. A woman documenting her heartbreaking divorce with a series of self-portraits.
I comment on their posts, they comment on mine. My feed becomes more inspiring than before. I stop stalking old acquaintances from high school and begin the process of what Cole calls “real networking”—making friends intentionally amongst people I respect and admire, people who inspire me with their creativity.
I wouldn’t have had the confidence to message any of these people before; they’re legitimate working artists. But so am I now. I’m not a cosplayer anymore. I’m passionate about my current series, I believe in it. I’m not embarrassed to talk about it. Quite the opposite—I want to discuss childhood trauma and self-destructive impulses. My mind is full of ideas.
The more I open up, the more I realize how many other people share these experiences. My past was ugly, but not so unique that no one else can understand it. Instead of judgment, I find acceptance.
A few of my posts go viral; most don’t. I don’t pay attention to that. I care more about the growing conversation amongst our group of like-minded artists.
Opening up to Cole, seeing his calm acceptance of even my strangest statements, is helping me to trust other people. To believe that they could meet the real Mara and actually like her, flaws and all.
Some of my new friends live in San Francisco. We meet in person at shows. Some are already known to Cole.
Cole is different when he’s introducing me around. He turns on the full measure of his charm, which is not as boisterous and loud as Shaw’s but is extraordinarily effective nonetheless because of his sly wit and his intense focus upon the person with whom we’re speaking.
At a dinner at Betsy Voss’ house, Cole sets the whole table roaring with an anecdote from art school.
Afterward I say to him, “I’ve never seen you like that. You had the whole room eating out of your hand.”
Cole looks at me, pushing back his fall of dark hair with one hand.
“I only told that story for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You looked bored. Something inside me whispered, ‘Say something funny. Make her laugh.’ ”
This touches me in the strangest way.
Cole and I had just spent the whole day together and fucked in the car on the way to the party. The fact that he still felt compelled to entertain me is ridiculously flattering.
The Siren prints a photo of us climbing out of Cole’s car, Cole holding the door open for me, dark and moody-looking with his long black coat swept back by the wind, and me with my hair in a maelstrom, my sparkly mini dress glinting like a disco ball, my head thrown back in laughter as the gust tries to take me away.
The caption reads: The Crown Prince and Princess of the Art World.
Below that, a brief article talking about Cole’s half-built sculpture in Corona Heights Park, and my upcoming show. The photograph shows one of my paintings, not Cole’s work.
It’s Cole who shows me the magazine, our glossy image looking far too glamorous to be anyone I know.