Sydneysider Claire Lloyd travelled the world following her passions – from her first job with Vogue Australia to becoming a successful freelance designer in London. But after years as a sought-after creative, she wanted something different; something more organic, a place where colour and beauty were sewn into the fabric of life.
Claire was 21 when she first experienced Greece on holiday with a girlfriend – two and a half months of island hopping “laughing all the way”- until it was time to swap blue skies for grey. It was 1983. She’d set her heart on ‘making it’ in London as a designer and art director, and after a difficult start determination won through.
By the age of 30, after working for the Conran Design Group, a host of ad agencies and magazines, Claire took a leap of faith into the freelance world and thrived. As a self-employed designer she loved the diversity of her work spreading across fashion, interiors, and advertising.
In 1998 she published her first book, Sensual Living – which showed readers how to create a home that stimulates the senses; a theme that underpins her philosophies on design and life itself.
With the book out, her professional life had never been more rewarding but Claire was working “like a maniac” and something had to give.
In 2004 glandular fever stopped her in her tracks, and during a long recuperation she asked herself those questions that often only arrive when the body gives a sign it may be time for change.
The suggestion of upping-sticks to the Mediterranean came from her homeopath Vicki, who Claire had been seeing for many years.
“I walked into her room and told her I felt ungrounded and disconnected, and Vicki held up her mobile phone. It stopped me in my tracks,” says Claire.
“On the screen was of an old stone house in the middle of a field. Beside the house was a walnut tree and above it piercing blue skies. Vicki said in her quiet way, “I’ve just bought a house on Lesbos, it’s a beautiful place, you should take a look, perhaps it’s your remedy.”
Overwhelmed not only by the image, but also by her homeopath’s openness in sharing something so personal, Claire ran with the idea.
“As soon as my feet touched the ground I felt a connection. For one beautiful week I travelled around the island under the warm spring sunshine looking for a place where I could reconnect with myself and with my creativity.”
With more than a touch of Zen, Claire found the perfect place, after literally taking a wrong turn off the main road.
“I was immediately drawn to the simplicity of the village of Molyvos – the openness of the people who lived there. There was something so peaceful about it as I sat in the kafenio.”
Warmly welcomed, Claire received that generous hospitality that is deeply rooted in the Greek island people.
The small house built in the 1950s, set high on a hill, with its long-forgotten garden and painted throughout in vivid turquoise captivated Claire from the moment its rusty front gate swung open.
“I fell in love with it immediately,” she says.
“Despite all the stories you hear, purchasing the house was easy. It was owned by four siblings. Luckily for us, they all agreed to the sale.”
With the purchase complete – in cash – in 2005, Claire and her partner, artist Matthew Usmar Lauder spent four months renovating their new Greek island refuge.
Back and forth to London regularly in the early days, the pull of their new home quickly grew, and the experience of swapping the urban grind of the UK for the precious gifts of a Greek village just had to be shared.
With a new digital camera as a birthday gift from Matthew, Claire began recording the everyday details of her house on the hill, and the gentle, generous community which embraced it.
“I work very quickly and spontaneously, and with my new camera I started documenting our village life and it quickly became very clear that something very special was emerging.”
After printing the strongest photographs – and with her honed art direction skills to the fore – Claire began editing and arranging the images – a kaleidoscope of a Greek island existence – rich, warm, full of colour and light.
With her leather-bound photo album tied with a pink ribbon in hand, back in Australia she met with Sydney publisher Julie Gibbs, founder of Lantern – an imprint of Penguin Books which specialises in crafted illustrated books which focus on travel, lifestyle and design. Gibbs loved it and My Greek Island Home was on its way.
“It’s about reconnecting with my creativity, with nature and it’s also about the importance of community living in a time when the world feels so disjointed,” says Claire of the book that is filled with images of the people and objects that make up her new home and what she finds inspirational about her new surroundings.
It’s the uncomplicated insights into the rich but simple life of Molyvos and Claire’s neighbours, which give the book its charm and depth.
The gently observed portraits of people like Pandelis in his mid-fifties who runs the local mini-market – moody, but liable to dissolve into hysterical laughter at any moment, Stratos and Panayiota who own the traditional kafenio, Irene, “a handsome woman in her late sixties with salt and pepper hair” who loves to share with Claire the art of making zucchini flower fritters, and Ralitza, whose “easy company and marvellous sense of humour” Claire cherishes as they sit under the shade of a walnut tree in Ralitza’s hilltop vegetable garden.
This cast of neighbours could come from any village in Greece and Claire Lloyd’s loving homage to one is a tribute to them all.
“I love this community life, it’s been inspiring in so many ways,” she tells Neos Kosmos.
“We’ve made some lovely new friends and are invited to all the village celebrations, weddings, funerals, feast days and baptisms, so we feel part of an extended family.
“Big cities can be very isolating places and at times people are forgotten. In a village there is a sense that people keep an eye out for each other, they care for each other,” says Claire.
“We often wake up and find a bag of fresh produce outside our front gate, and we have no idea who to thank”.
Sensitively observed through both her photography and text, My Greek Island Home distills the essence of not just Claire’s journey to an idyllic new home, but what Greek island life – barely changed over hundreds of years – is all about.
It reminds us of the need to reconnect with simple pleasures, to savour “the tang of salt in the air. Sunlight sparkling on clear blue water. Pomegranate seeds glistening like jewels in your palm.”
Claire Lloyd’s story of moving to Lesbos is lovingly told; a tale of how beauty and happiness come from simple things – open smiles, morning walks and nature’s timeless gifts in a culture and society at peace with itself.
Stunningly visual and tactile it’s a beautifully crafted book; its elements – the texture of the paper, cloth ribbon (pink – like the first scrapbook) and de-bossed cover – combine to give the reader a highly sensual experience. Claire’s a perfectionist and you can see and feel it in every page.
It’s a book to hold, to dip in and out of, and a book to be inspired by – a tangible reminder of every precious, priceless thing that a Greek island village and its people give to the world.
Images reproduced from the book My Greek Island Home by Claire Lloyd, published by Lantern, rrp $49.99.