David Moss's Purim project: Esther without Borders

The six small stand-up boxes contain three-dimensional dolls in Inca costumes, complete with their traditional designs and surrounded by ceramic pots, also in the traditional style. Highly colorful, these miniature dolls are amazingly made out of potato flour! Peruvian artist Zuly Jimenez had been asked by Jerusalem-based artist David Moss to illustrate the Purim story as told in the Scroll of Esther as if it were set in the artist’s own surroundings. Jimenez decided to root her interpretation in Peru’s ancient culture, which meant going back to a time when the Incas ruled the land. One innovation among many was the depiction of Haman leading Mordechai sitting on a llama, since, as she explained, the horse had not been introduced into this part of the world until the Spaniards came and conquered Peru.

The experience of making these models was for Jimenez “unforgettable” in that it combined art and history, legend and story-telling. It was precisely the reaction that Moss was looking for and had already received from his many guest artists from around the world over the previous thirty years when he started this unique project.

“In 1990, I was in Bali, Indonesia,” he recalled, “searching for craftspeople for another project of mine, when I viewed the beautiful miniatures being produced by the local artists. Bali, a traditional Hindu society, is full of palaces, royalty, princes and princesses, ceremonies and rituals. All these things strongly reminded me of the story of Esther and Purim. So when I went back the second time, I asked artists from two different villages to do their take on the story. I gave them parchment and the story of Esther translated into Indonesian. I drew six small blank rectangles and I told them to imagine that this story was happening right in their village. The six scenes I asked them to envisage included Achashverus’s party at the beginning of the story; the beauty contest in which Esther participates and wins; the reaching out of the scepter by the king to Esther; Haman leading Mordechai on the king’s horse; the hanging of Haman’s ten sons; and the writing out of the megilla to go out to all the lands of the king’s massive kingdom. I didn’t want them to imagine Persia or anything to do with the original story. It had to be local in their own culture and style. I waited for the responses. When I viewed the stunningly original crafted images they had produced, it gave me another thought: Perhaps I could expand this idea by seeking out folk artists from around the world willing to depict these same six scenes in their own vernacular culture and style. Thus began a fascinating, bizarre thirty-year quest I’ve come to call Esther without Borders,” said Moss.

Esther without Borders

Although it was initially happenstance that energized the beginnings of the project, Moss’s enthusiasm only grew as he encountered folk artists from around the world who responded positively to his strange request. In the course of his ongoing project, he encountered artists from Ukraine, Russia, Bali, India, Italy, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, California, New Mexico, and so on, thus echoing the megilla’s Achashveros, whose kingdom spread from “Hodu to Kush” (India to Ethiopia). The original Purim has a profoundly universal flavor.

“I initially sought out folk artists,” said Moss, “ although I’ve asked a few professional artists, too. Another change came about when I approached an artist in Italy whose charming work I had spotted in a small exhibition in the Piedmont region. He said he’d love to do the project but that he could not work in the miniature format I had been requesting. I told him to use whatever format he liked. He was very imaginative, created a delightful accordion book, and also drew the main characters from the story on the back of the work. He had a great sense of humor, depicting the eunuch of the king, for example, with a pair of scissors on his turban! 

“Once the mold was broken, I let the rest of the artists do the images in whatever format they were most comfortable with. This came to mean the project has been done on tiles, fabrics, icons, and envelopes, as well as on paper and parchment.”

Although Moss is a much traveled artist, the language of communication with the artists does sometimes present problems. “With the Italian artist, I found a nearby gallery owner who helped locate and communicate with the artist. I use Google Translate to communicate with many of the artists. Fortunately, the Book of Esther is also in the Christian Bible, which has been translated into hundreds of languages. I send the artists the entire book in their own language and highlight the six verses,” he explained. 

“A friend was headed off to Australia, and I asked her to propose the project to an Aboriginal artist if she came across one. She found Emma Burchill, a wonderful artist who did the project in their highly abstract, symbolic style. She explained to me how the Aborigines paint their works using dots as if they were looking down at the scene from a bird’s eye view. Therefore, she showed the feast viewed from above as their campfire, with the guests dancing the traditional corrobbree ceremony around the fire.” 

He did not have to travel for every artist. Some came to him in his studio in Huzot Hayotzer beneath the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Moss met Boris Gozzo, a talented Ukrainian artist living in Israel whose illustrations portrayed some of the men in the scene as drunken peasants.

Most years, the art studios in Huzot Hayotzer play host to an international arts and crafts fair, so it was that Moss met Rajendra Kumar Moktan from Nepal whose expertise is in the creation of mandelas – prayer wheels used in Buddhist and Hindu sacred rites and as an instrument of meditation. The detailed scenes he painted on canvas truly convey the ceremonies of Nepalese culture. 

When I met Moss in his somewhat overcrowded studio, he had just got off the phone with a woman from Portugal. “Her name is Teresa,” he said. “She works on Azulejo tiles in the blue and white ceramic tradition from the 17th and 18th century. They were influenced by Delft tiles. She had just sent me a sketch of what she is doing and wrote to me that she was finishing the last tile. She had painted the stations of the cross in ceramics for her local cathedral and the tiles for the Esther story were done in this strong Portuguese, Christian tradition.”

Not that every encounter is successful. “I tried a Chinese artist but didn’t like what he did. I’ll have to go back there and try someone else. Also, although I pay the artists whatever fee they request, if they ask more than I can afford, I let it go,” he said.

It is perhaps not surprising that some of these artists became firm friends.

“In Morro Bay, California, I met Philip Carey, who specialized in drawing delightful miniature scenes on envelopes and mailing them to their destination via the post office. They are whimsical and full of humor. I marveled how he translated the Esther story into his envelope art. He portrayed each of the figures as being from the animal world. So his king is a Monarch butterfly, Esther is a Morro Bay sea otter, Mordechai a bald eagle riding on a sea horse, Haman is depicted as a coyote, and so forth. Esther sends out the Purim story by ‘seamail’ on seahorses, and ‘landmail’ with roadrunners. Philip executed all these envelope images in ink and colored pencil and then sent them to me through the post office. We were in close contact over the years, but tragically he has passed away. I treasure these miniature masterpieces that so embody who he was.” 

Although Moss was happy to give many of these artists some visibility, he came upon one group of unknown artists who had simply disappeared. These were the Mimbres, an extinct civilization from southern New Mexico who flourished between 1,000 and 1,150 CE and then vanished, leaving behind no writing. All that remains of them are the ruins of their buildings and their black-and-white pottery with unique stylized designs. 

“I was always captivated by the powerful designs they left behind, and felt that it was somehow unfair that I was limiting my project to living cultures. I decided to imagine myself as an ancient Mimbres artist and designed the six Esther scenes as round, bowl-like images based on what was recovered from their tradition,” he said. 

Moss, an internationally recognized book artist, calligrapher, designer of ketubot and architectural designs, appreciates how he has succeeded sufficiently well to have the ability and willingness to help fellow artists who were not so fortunate. At the same time, he has not rushed this project nor does he have future plans for it.

“I love that there is no end, goal, or deadline to this,” he confessed. “People have suggested that I turn it into a book, others that it should be exhibited. My daughter Elyssa runs a center opposite my studio called Kol HaOt, which brings together art and Judaism. We did do a small show of these works there. But the beauty of this project for me is in the remarkable people it has connected me with, the thrill and surprise of opening each new contribution, and the sheer joy of watching a simple idea unfold and blossom in so many surprising ways.”

Whichever way Moss decides, it would indeed be a pity if this impressive project were not viewed by a much larger audience. But maybe, as he jokes, he’s going to wait until he reaches 127 nations – from India to Ethiopia and beyond!■