Below is some information I found on "Suffering Moses" -if you care to read...:
There was this shop in Srinagar owned by this old artist/artisan who made the most exquisite papier mache, (not the stuff you get in the state emporia), delicate, multi-layered, intricate flawless pieces. He signed all his work on the bottom, in a sprawling calligraphic signature…the same name as his store, Suffering Moses.’ His name was Moses. I had to know, had to ask him, Why Suffering Moses?”
He looked at me, intently, his eyes a strange shade somewhere between green and grey, the pink skin of his cheeks glowing, Young lady. How else could I make anything beautiful? Only by suffering, right? I suffer for my art. You create nothing good if you don’t suffer.”
And that to me, is the relationship between excellence and suffering. Thank you Suffering Moses wherever you are.
…a long time ago, I lived in Srinagar, situated in Kashmir – northern India. The city are surrounded by mountains at the Himalayan foothills. When the frosty winter bid adieu, and all the landscape of Kashmir underwent the metamorphosis to summer, people from all over hot India came to Srinagar to be relieved and chilled: they relaxed while laying down, eating and drinking on the intimate soft sofas under the canopies of the Shikara boats, drifting like in heaven on the lakes Dal and Nagin. The labyrinth of rivers with its numerous bridges took them to a hidden world; the cooling breeze in the alleys under the shadows of the majestic Chinar trees made everyone grateful. In the evening they went to the Oberoi, palace of the last Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, to drink tea with saffron from Pampore in the garden, and admire the fabulous panorama of Dal Lake with its hundreds of characteristic houseboats made from cedar. No wonder why the Moghuls chose to build some of the worlds most spectacular gardens in exactly these surroundings.
In a silent area of Srinagar, between the old main Post Office and a colonial building that housed Grindlays Bank, lay an extraordinary shop that sold objets d’art of papier mâché and woodcarvings of walnut, as well as more common quality handicrafts. The place had a magic aura indeed. The second floor gallery was run by the mysterious and highly charismatic Moses, an old wise man, a leader of an occult religious group. His wife was surprisingly from America, and he continued a family tradition that had lasted for unknown centuries. I always went to his place on my way home from downtown. A river ran just a few steps from the front of the shop, and I had to cross it with a boat at exactly this spot to get to my house on the other side.
Moses explained how he had been trained to become a painter as a little boy at the very beginning of the 20th century; the first years he was only allowed to draw circles on paper; after that period he justifyingly added the name Suffering. He also found pleasure in simple things, and I soon learned that he collected stamps, so I used to bring him all I could find. He was not too eager to part with his best items, and he wished that potential customers of his finer works should be aware what they purchased. On several occasions I witnessed him asking certain customers to leave his shop and never return, with the explanation that they did not understand the slightest of art. I was lucky to be able to purchase some of his most outstanding items, among them a mortar and pestle in papier mâché, the outside with miniature animals in a pale green landscape, the inside with dense, whorling flowers in real gold on a cream background. Suffering Moses made it around 1915.
His son and grandson also had high quality shops just a short walk from the master himself. Eventually, I became a painter myself – perhaps driven by my subconscious, inspired by this happy time in my life.
Marius Holmby, Norway