Thank you, Lora Mckenna. You raise questions I struggle with a lot. I never meant to imply that an artist must be as ascetically pure as they are talented for them to be “good” or culturally relevant. But then I have this visceral resistance when the artists’ pedophilia and sociopathy exceed good old-fashioned narcissism. And I do find myself filtering my art appreciation through a convoluted and inconsistent Morality Ministry.

Despite what deplorable humans Jimmy Page and Pablo Picasso were I still love their art. I still interact with it in personal ways that inspire me. Yet I would put Woody Allen and Roman Polansky on an ice float and shove with glee. So it seems my metrics fluctuate hypocritically based on how much I love an artist’s art.

But I’m loving this idea that art is deep enough and expansive enough to reflect and represent the complexity of humanity instead of compensating for its deviance.

Thank you for giving me so much to think about and a new way to evaluate art. I can feel my mind churning this idea around.