I've had the thought that a person's 'artistic vision' is really just the cumulative combination of whatever particular stances he has sincerely occupied during his creative life - even if some of those might appear contradictory.
Certainly we're always rooting for our particular contingent moment to be a great one. Pain-free. But the more expansive vision has to include the idea that, even for us, sometimes our particular contingent moment is going to be horrific.
