Polish and shine that spirit

Hydra is a small island, a population of 2,000 in winter, no cars, only donkeys to climb its steep hillsides. However, the island is rich in art and so very busy with the artists who create that art.

Over the last few months, the museum galleries have featured artists whose work uses wool, acrylic and oil to materials such as fish skin to wood shavings.

The island’s old Slaughter House has been repurposed as a small gallery by the Deste Foundation. This year’s theme is Dream Machines focusing on technology and imagination with works from Marcel Duchamp and others. Last year, Jeff Koons, he of the metallic balloon dogs, was the featured artist and his 30-foot rotating model of the sun remains as a legacy of his exhibition.

The Hydra School Projects this year carries the theme Lessons Learned. The exhibition will challenge anyone who thinks of art as contained within a neat frame on a wall. The broad range of artists use materials from petrified mud to sea glass. This year the exhibition is at the old Agora near the post office until mid-September.

Sitting in any Hydra café you are never more than five feet from an artist. Many come here because the lack of traffic noise strips away an outer layer of stress leaving the psyche free for inspiration. Others, such as Victoria from New Jersey and Peder from Antwerp, are veterans of the DescoverArtist programme on the island, a school that aims to stimulate artists and their creativity to new levels. And then there are the resident artists, many of whom offer private and group lessons.

Drama is not forgotten. In the summer months those lucky enough to visit over a Thursday in July and August can attend The Hydrama Theatre where theatre companies from around the world perform in an outdoor, homegrown amphitheatre.

Hydra’s connection with art goes back decades. Nikos Ghikas and Panagiotis Tetsis, both prominent mid-century painters, found solace working on Hydra, and they led other artists to seek creative inspiration here. Soon musicians and writers followed, including Leonard Cohen, Henry Miller and John Craxton.

Children are not excluded from the art scene on Hydra. An annual competition rewards a top clutch of school children with money for art supplies.

Probably the artistic appeal of Hydra is its quiet. With no road traffic, the cobble-stone lanes and quiet passages between homes have a stillness that allows our creative thoughts to dominate. On arrival, it is easy to feel your shoulders ease downward as the noises of the mainland slough away.

I love the immersion in art that takes place here. All new creations feel inspirational, even to those like me who are lacking in dexterity. What I see freshens my perspective and puts a little polish and shine to my spirit.

The Jeff Koons sculpture at the Slaughter House

Comments

We're all foreigners somewhere

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as foreigners, even when we’re overseas. We believe that we are one with the wider group. After all, foreigners are something else, they are the people who don’t belong. I remember the first time I realised I was be an outsider. My British Caledonian flight to Zambia had landed in Lusaka and, when I looked out onto the tarmac, none of the ground staff looked like me. It gave me a thrill but also a sense of vulnerability. These people were not my people and I wondered if I would be safe among them. That thought prompted another – this is how visitors to my own country must feel. They are outnumbered, and their dress, skin colour, hair, any number of things, mark them out and perhaps leave them open to hostility. I have to say that I met no hostility in Zambia. Instead, my social skills grew as I learned to reach out to the people I lived among. Perhaps I did it to fit in, to ensure that I was less of a foreigner. I didn’t anticipate feeling ...

If no one ever left home Think of a world where no one ever travelled. One where we knew all our neighbours, our landscapes, and we shared the same philosophy on life. In this world we would know nothing of what lay over a hillside, behind a mountain or across the sea. Some people in this world, they are perfectly happy here. Personally, I feel smothered even writing that description. Travel is as much about considering new ideas as it is about taking a photo or buying a t-shirt. My first trip overseas was magical although perhaps not in some people's eyes. I travelled from Scotland to Greece by bus - four days of looking out of the window onto a foreign world, my very own vista. It was dawn when we reached the Greek border, the hillsides were golden and, as I looked around, I would not have been surprised to see a shepherd and his nymphs frolicking downhill toward me. No matter the long bus journey, I had arrived into a magical land. The children of The Lion, the Witch and ...

To guide or not to guide

The mobile phone has made travel easier. Not only can we contact our loved ones more easily, tell them we’re in trouble, ask for help, or simply tell them that we miss them, but the mobile phone gives us access to maps, a compass, and guides on where to eat and places to stay. When I began travelling, which was in the dark ages before the internet, I would write to a country’s tourist board and tell them what part of their country I wanted to visit. They would send me a stack of brochures, and I would pour over the photos and the text for months ahead of our trip. My friends were not so engaged. All they wanted was sun and they left the planning to me. Looking back, there wasn’t a lot of planning. We’d take the bus from the old airport in Athens to Piraeus, step into any of the ferry offices and buy a ticket to an island. We didn’t ask where to find the ferry but would walk along the port side yelling at anyone on board each boat: “Paros”, “Crete” or wherever. Most times we w...

Travel now not tomorrow

Search This Blog