This work addresses Bartow's life-long interest in masks. In 1989 he wrote "...It was also at this period that I began dealing with personal problems and my Viet Nam experience. These experiences will, in some ways, probably always have an effect on how I view things. Masks of my own were falling away, which enabled me to begin to see the masks of others and realize for the first time that I was not the only one who had problems; that I no longer had to be afraid. At a time when my peers already had families, I was just learning to look at myself in the mirror and see myself. I was speaking my own name without discomfort. I was beginning to look at others and really see them. The work, though admittedly strange, told many stories that I myself was blind to for quite a few years."