The other day I was wondering about the artist's mask -- submerging your ego into a technically flawless performance -- is that good or bad? Today I'm reading a Janet Malcolm review of Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans" [New Yorker, June 13 & 20]. The book is thought to be "important" but unreadable. Part way through, Stein comes out from behind the curtain of her story to bitch about the torture of writing the damn thing.
Stein's invocation of her scribbled and dirty and lined paper comes out of the new climate, called modernism, that French painters are being warmed by and that she is one of the first literary artists to feel. Her book is going to concern itself with the conditions of its making in the way the paintings of Cezanne and Picasso and Matisse concern themselves with the conditions of theirs. Hovering over the work is an image of a woman sitting at a desk stubbornly performing her daily task of covering blank pieces of paper with words; and this woman is the real heroine of the book.
So this is modernism? Exposing your craft for the world to examine and interact with?
Makes me wonder... does this take the magic out of art the same way insurance paperwork takes the magic out of psychotherapy? For me, it adds magic. It layers process onto outcome. Art is not received inspiration -- it is alchemy. Isn't it more amazing to see art being made than to simply see the final product?
7:17:28 PM 
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My thinking about masks has spilled over into my examination of a collection of 19th century photos I'm trying to figure out what to do with.