Jennifer

Jennifer first arrived on the Rock at the age of 10, after her father, Michael, bought a house above Hydra’s port. While she lived in Virginia year-round with her mother, Jeanne, and stepfather, Steve, she visited Hydra with her father every summer for a month, in her younger years tripping along the port chasing kitties, then later tripping home from Cavos to make her curfew (father had threatened to call the “police” if she was even a minute late).

Creative Kamini

Published July 1, 2007 | By Jennifer

Alexis Averbuck

Alexis Averbuck, Hydra Island Greece

Painter and writer

Having relocated to Hydra in 2007, Alexis recent painting works to capture the specific luster of the island’s colors, moods, and natural environment. Learn more.

Alison Leslie Gold

Writer

Award-winning author Alison Leslie Gold has published fiction, nonfiction, and journalism, as well as written for radio and television. She presently divides her time between New York City and Kamini, Hydra. Learn more.

Ann Rivers

Ann Rivers, poet, Hydra, Greece

Poet

Poet Ann Rivers has lived on Hydra for nearly four decades. Learn more and more.

Bill Pownall

Painter

English painter Bill Pownall has been living and working on Hydra for decades, transforming its scenery into a symbolic language in his abstract paintings and creating evocative landscape collages. Learn more and more.

Brice Marden

Brice Marden on Charlie Rose

PainterAmerican painter Brice Marden and his wife, Helen Harrington, first visited Hydra in 1971. Since, they have returned annually, and the island is said to have greatly affected Marden’s work. Learn more and more.

Charles Young

Writer

American novelist Charles Young lives part-time on Hydra. His novel Clouds over Hydra (1996) is set on the island. Learn more.

David Fagan

David Fagan returning to his African roots

Writer

David Fagan spent his formative years in Africa. After lunch on a Greek island day trip in 1983, he opted not to reboard the cruise boat but stayed, living and working on Hydra, pursuing his alternative lifestyle, publishing his first collection of stories about the island in 2003. Learn more.

David Irlam

Sculptor and writer

David has been living on the Greek island of Hydra for over twenty years, during which time he has developed a keen interest in making items of art from the native Olive wood. Learn more.

Demetri Gassoumis

Painter

Born of an Hydriot mother, Demetris Gassoumis splits his time between the island and the States. Hydra landscapes make up the vast majority of his painting, and he also makes stunning shadow sculptures out of white paper. Learn more.

Don Lowe

Writer

Don Lowe has spent the last four decades on the island and has penned multiple works of fiction. He often entertains the locals with readings from his writings. Learn more.

Francesca

Poet

Update to come!

Jacqueline Savidge

Painter

Jacqui came to live in Greece nearly 25 years ago. After living in Athens for two years she moved to Hydra, which has been her home and source of inspiration ever since. Learn more.

Iris Kharami

Painter

Descended from an old Hydriot family, the self-taught Iris Kharami has been painting for thirty years. She has had seven one-woman shows in Athens and two on Hydra, and her work captures island’s “grandeur and austerity.” Learn more.

Karolos Voutsinas

Composer and pianist

Greek-English musician Karolos Voutsinas has enjoyed a successful career in Greece and internationally as a composer, arranger, pianist, and vocal performer, among a myriad other roles. He made Hydra his home in 2008. Learn more.

Leonard Cohen

Writer and musician

Canadian poet, novelist, songwriter, and singer Leonard Cohen spent many years on Hydra, which features prevalently in or has otherwise influenced much of his writing. Learn more.

Mary Gladstone

Painter

Mary Louise Coulouris

Mary Louise Coulouris, Hydra Island Greece

Painter and printmaker

Mary Louise is a printmaker, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Printmakers, painter, and public artist. Imagination, creativity, and design sense are central to her work. She spends most of the year on Hydra. Learn more.

Michael Lawrence

Painter

Michael Lawrence has lived and worked on Hydra since 1992, painting landscapes and portraits, as well as whimsical interpretations of idea and experience, some inspired by the island itself. He exhibits annually at the Maria Mercuri Gallery on Hydra’s port. Learn more.

Michalis Maniatis

Writer and actor

Update to come!

Natacha Best

Natacha Best and Hart Porsche at Kamini's Varena Foundation

Painter

French watercolorist Natacha Best divides her time between Paris and Hydra, taking the landscape as the inspiration for most of her paintings. She has exhibited for more than twenty years throughout France, Spain, and Greece. Since 2006, she has served as vice president of Kamini’s Verena Foundation. Learn more.

Panayiotis Tetsis

Painter

One of Greece’s most eminent painters, Hydra-born Panayiotis Tetsis takes the island as inspiration for many of his land- and seascapes and still lifes. Learn more and more and more.

Pauline Keaney

Pauline Keaney in her studio

Painter

Pauline Keaney lives permanently on Hydra, whose landscape and scenery are sources of inspiration for her abstract paintings. Learn more.

Roger Green

Roger Green in Kamini, Hydra

Poet

English writer and poet Roger Green lives and works full-time in Kamini, regaling the locals with his parodic verse. Learn more and more.

Most Successful Miaoulis Ever!

Published June 24, 2007 | By Jennifer

Turkish Flagship Turns Turtle before Hydra's Miaoulis Festivities

Turkish Fleet Sinks before the Engagement

Within minutes of news getting out of the pyrotechnic flagship’s keeling over on June 23, 2007, a number of conspiracy theories erupted:

There was an altercation with a speeding water taxi.
An unexpected and isolated squall caused the “main event” to capsize.
The ex/current/former/future mayor sent a secret underwater demolition squad to scuttle the boat.
The ex/current/former/future mayor had an oar in its sinking in order to frame the ex/current/former/future mayor.
The boat purchased was so rotten with woodworm that even the fisherman who sold it was surprised to see it float in the first place.
The Militant Albanian Liberation Army, in coalition with the Kamini Anarchists (MALA/KA), had infiltrated the pyrotechnic preparations, upsetting the ballast and ensuring the flagship would turn turtle (motives remain mysterious).
And then … there’s the CIA

Of course, a skeptical few believed it was simply an unfortunate accident.

The Show Must Go On

All joking aside, organizers and Hydriotes are to be commended for producing a spectacular show and fireworks display for Hydra’s major annual festival in the face of such adversity. Bravo!

I know I know that face …

Published May 1, 2007 | By Jennifer

Kosta Simitis Recently, I was sitting with a mate in Xristina’s taverna, one of our four summertime Kamini dining establishments (in winter it’s down to one), when a pair of middle-aged couples wandered into the local and sat down. I recognized the one of the gents; he had a familiar, friendly face, and I felt I had known him for years. (Out of context, whether socially or not in their shops, it is often difficult to place locals’ faces).

So, I nodded, smiled, and doffed my hat. He smiled and nodded back. My friend, a swarthy local builder, Pavlos, was grinning.“Do you know who that is?” he asked.

“No,” I said innocently. “I know him, though. Does he have a house or gold shop here”?

“Oxi,” laughed Pavlos. “That is Kosta Simitis, our last prime minister.”

Ah, yes, the man who managed to get Greece on the euro in time, amongst a host of other legacies the country now enjoys.