Wakey wakey

Rising sleepy-eyed from a seven-month slumber, The Filthy Pen yawns, stretches, and wonders if it might have overslept just a wee bit. Not to worry. Let's pull out our allegorical finger, pull up our metaphorical socks, and get on the end of it.

For TFP's comeback posting, we've opted for tradition and simplicity in the form of a series of images currently on show along a short stretch of Edinburgh's city centre. The series consists of four penises, which begin on Waverley Bridge, above, and finish midway along nearby Cockburn Street, below - a route that takes little more than 60 seconds to walk.

It looks as if someone's been having fun with their chalk. Or maybe not. Perhaps the handiwork represents the efforts of more than just a solo artist. Take a moment to study each individual image, and you'll see that the subjects come at the viewer from all angles, and in an array of styles.






Could it have been an outing by students from the renowned Edinburgh College of Art, working en masse as part of an assignment to liven up the city with a series of al fresco micro-tableaux?

Art is all about interpretation. First, there's interpretation on the part of the artist, in terms of their influences, their choice of subject matter, and how they use their raw materials at their creative disposal. Then there's the interpretation on the part of the viewer - in other words, how the audience reacts to the art they're confronted with, and what they feel it says to them about the world around them and their own place within it. And it's all subjective. There's no good or bad, or right or wrong. It's a personal thing. Viewer A loathes it, Viewer B loves it.

So, are you Viewer A or Viewer B?