The Key to Our Heart

As anyone who follows us to any degree knows, we have a little thing for greek keys. I know, I know--it's probably considered "over" by lots of bloggers, trend forecasters, and the like, but really, with its origins dating back to ancient Egyptian times, hasn't it been OVER for, like, thousands of years?

Here's an interesting mini-history of the greek key design motif (seemingly very simplified, but interesting nonetheless) that I found courtesy of one of my new Twitter friends:

"Despite its name, the Greek key motif, perhaps the most widely used classical decorative pattern in history, is actually not Greek in origin.

Variations of this classical pattern are found on ancient Egyptian tombs as well as in Peruvian woven crafts, Chinese architecture and even Aztec sculptures.

The Greeks, however, made the most creative and unmatched use of the pattern in columns, temples, pottery, etc., and truly earned the naming rights to this classical motif.

It is common knowledge that the Romans copied the Greeks, and by the 18th century, the English, Russians and French were copying the Romans. Now, we ourselves have copied the pattern from the Romans, too!

A detail that always refers to the classical era, the motif that was widely used in Greek architecture and furniture is often used to enhance both Empire and Neoclassical style pieces.

Nowadays the versatile and timeless Greek motif is commonly found in chinaware, chairs, tables and almost any piece of any style imaginable."

And yes, we did say "Twitter." We Twitter. We Tweet. We don't really know what those things mean but we are trying to use them convincingly. (Is it working?)

In all honesty, I have not been an early adapter on the whole Twitter thing. I've been experimenting with it here and there but, what with e-mail, blogging, Facebook, and just good, old-fashioned work, rarely remember to use it. Can anyone out there relate? Is it just me, or is all this technology making it hard to get anything done? Am I sounding ancient yet?

If (god help you) you should desire to follow our intermittent comings and goings and incoherent ramblings via Twitter, check us out here.

(Image from 1st Dibs. For three pages of drooling, explore 1st Dibs' selection of greek key-motif-bearing items. That yellow lacquered credenza is causing me physical pain. Nothing says recession like an $18,000 credenza.)