I think it's pretty significant that the mommy facing away from her kid, there is no sharing going on there.

Ronald Searle illustrated and was featured in the Naked Island by Russell Braddon, the book recounts the fate of allied servicemen under Japanese occupation, a downloadable copy (wthout Searle's illustrations) can be found here:

http://manybooks.net/titles/braddonrother07naked_island.html

Braddon affirms that the schoolgirls and teaching staff of St Trinians are based on the inmates and guards at Changi.

@ #1 actually windmills are often used to mark children's graves.

I remember visiting Koya-san, a very prestigeous cemetary near Nara in Japan, as well as holding most of the literary, political and business elite, it had the corporate tombs of Nissan and UCC (a coffee beverage company). Atop the UCC tomb was an enormous granite coffee cup and clustered around it were can after can of the company products, a tableau which got a laugh out of myself and most the visitors walking past.

this was made by the democrats to smear McCain right?

I can only say "Sakurazuka Yakkun"

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/face/archive/news/2006/20060929p2g00m0dm029000c.html

@Chgoliz I think you may be right about the chair

@Lava that 'people in glass houses' argument would stick more if he'd designed and built it himself, if you read the caption on flickr, you'll see he paid someone else to do both.

Putting my money where my mouth is, I have in fact made a table book case. Originally it was our tv table for a the rather oddly shaped living room our last house had. All four legs held videos/dvds/cds as well as upper shelving for our stereo, since transmuted into my 4 year old son's bookcase/toy storage and play table. The legs and upper book cases were mini flat packed shelving units I bought and the tabletop was wood cut to measure by a DIY supply shop. So I 'designed' and assembled it myself. I can supply pictures if you really want

Why does he want a shin height table type area on the outside of the structure? It has no functional use - it's too low to be a table, unless it was intended as a one person coffee table. If it's intended to be a place to put things it's awkward to use either having to kneel or stoop considerably to place or retrieve anything (could that be why nothing has been left on that area in the photo). It also can't function as a traditional Japanese low table, thanks to the top and bottom of the area mirroring each other, you can't sit under it.

Secondly the access point is actually a box - in other words you have to walk on part of the wooden structure to get inside (and in fact the guy ended up putting a rug there to protect the wood in the picture above). There are enough surfaces around to give an open ended doorway stability, were they attached, without altering the design. That however was not the choice, for me it just seems redundant - an unnecessary repetition of the contours-supported-by-boxes theme.

dunno when I saw this my first reaction was to sigh and shake my head - the whole concept is physical spam.

The product has no intrinsic artistic value unless he's starting the 'high school woodwork project' movement and says nothing meaningful (in all senses of the word), even by today's Damien Hirst post ironic irony standards. He can't even get fake greenie points for making it out of waste materials.

Now if these things were being sold at cost - maybe, just maybe, I could see a deluded artist and his project.

But at $20 a pop, of which approx $5 will buy you bit wood + tree, to me this says he though about buying a bit of botnet and trying to convince you to buy junk bonds, but this was cheaper.

Compare his stuff to someone like Chris Yates (http://www.chrisyates.net/store/) who is an artist. Whether or not you like his stuff you don't get the feeling he thinks the internet community is just a three year old and its credit card waiting to be separated.