If your art is the study of real life you don't glance away from the cruel parts. This is how you work. You have to do it thoroughly, at the window, on the street and in the mirror. You keep taking it in. Absorbing the truth about yourself, people, and nasty social systems that we would prefer not to notice. A truth-artist has to know. No, more than just know…in every crime you have to live the terror of the dead and of their killer. In every lie told in convenience you have to sympathize with the weakness of the liar and still cringe at the damage. So as the Eye, you wear in your soul every stain you absorb. You are the Sin Eater. Back in the Old Country your eldritch ancestors were made to stay far away from the good people. Except when it came time to deal with the sins of the dead or dying. Then they came looking for you. Eating sin-bread and drinking a sin-ale over the body, you called their crimes onto yourself. 'Your sins are now upon me; go to Eternal Rest and walk the Earth no more.' Afterwards the family paid you and chased you back to the woods. Because after that moment… didn't you know all their wicked family secrets?
Oh yes, yes you did.
And this is why some kinds of artists are considered bad to invite to the nice parties.
image- Sin Eater self portrait --- Anne Cox