Display Boards for Street Contacting

by Godfrey J. Ellis – oil 1970

As my story explains (see “By” on this website), I have enjoyed art as long as I can remember.  I dabbled with art off and on throughout my youth, although little to none of that work survives today. At 21 years old, I left home for two years in France as a young missionary (from 1969 to 1971). In Brest, France, I was stationed with a companion who didn’t want to go out knocking door-to-door (too much rejection!)  The only alternative to tracting was called “street contacting” but the plywood board used for that was woefully inadequate. It was covered with dozens of photos cut out of Church magazines. It just wasn’t effective in keeping pedestrian’s attention.  In my journal for June 22, 1970, (where I sound very young, indeed!) I wrote:

Mon – 22 June 1970:  We decided to make some (better) boards.  To save money, we’re going to paint the paintings ourselves.  The other team is in charge of carpentry and building the frames.  Elder Horejs and I are in charge of painting.  He says he likes art but knows nothing about it and says he’ll try if I help him.”

Tues, 23 June 1970:  Wow!  If there’s one thing I learned today, it is that I’d forgotten how hard it is to paint!  And if there’s a second thing that I learned, it’s not to paint in details with black paint.  It’s a mess – kind of discouraging.  But I’m going to go over it and paint over the black and see what I come up with.

I started the painting project by trying to copy a picture of Christ ordaining his Apostles in the Upper Room. The original was painted by LDS artist, Harry Anderson.  The photo of my rendition can be seen on the panels to the left.  Unfortunately, it is a poor-quality and tiny photo.  Even blowing it up, it is blurred and hard to see.  My journal continues:

Thurs, 25 June 1970:  I finally gave up in the painting of Christ ordaining the Apostles….  Hopeless!  Instead, I started a picture of Joseph Smith’s Vision.  Instead of making a realistic painting – which I don’t seem to be able to do anymore. I’m making what looks like a paint-by-number picture.  There is now no attempt to blend the color – just separate blocks of color, like on a paint-by-number set.  What I’ve painted so far looks really good.  I don’t know if the picture will turn out using this style, but it can’t be any worse than my first attempt!

Tues, 30 June 1970:  The first picture is finished.  It’s a painting of Joseph Smith’s Vision and, apart from it taking too long to make, we are quite satisfied with it.  I kind of think that the “Heavenly light” took away from the picture, but it still looks better than I expected.

Below are the next two paintings that were on the panels. The one on the left was of the ancient prophet, Moroni, announcing the Restoration with his trumpet. The painting on the right was another ancient prophet. To be honest, now 50 years later, I can’t even remember who that is supposed to be – perhaps Mormon. In any case, the two photos of the paintings (below) were greatly enlarged from tiny slides so they are unfortunately incredibly blurry.

The next painting (below) was meant to show a Frenchman contemplating which Church to attend.  To spice it up, I decided to set one of the Cathedral spires on fire!  My missionary companion, John Horejs, was quite concerned about that, thinking it inflammatory (pun intended).  I thought it would at least be a conversation starter.  Again, it is so enlarged that it is blurry.

The final painting was a portrait of the current prophet of the Church, Joseph Fielding Smith. I have posted it on its own on this website, Just search for his name. The end of the story the panels is that they were somewhat disappointing.  As I explained at the time in my journal entry:

Sat, 11 July 1970:  The grand début!  We put the panels up in the street.  They look really professional.  We discovered that they look TOO professional.  Most of the passersby mistook us for students from L’Ecole des Beaux Arts (local art school).  They thought we were selling the pictures!   Nevertheless, we talked to lots of people and I’m sure they’ll be a great tool when we’ve solved that problem.

Perhaps one of the best outcomes of this project was totally unexpected. My missionary companion John Horejs was fascinated with my painting.  He even asked if he could do one alone.  “I guess so,” I said.  There is no photo of his attempt, but I remember that it was okay.  Not bad for someone who had never painted. The surprise occurred a year later, when John returned home and enrolled at Brigham Young University. He looked for a class to take and decided he would take an art class.  He loved it!  In fact, he dropped out of BYU and started painting full time, with a little instruction from his aunt.  John went on to become a highly successful landscape artist, specializing in murals of Arizona landscapes for hotel, government offices, and bank lobbies, one as large as 5’ x 12’ and costing $20,000 or more.  He has paintings hanging in galleries in New York and Los Angeles and has now painted thousands of landscapes.  One of his sons opened an art gallery in Phoenix and a daughter became a painter. Look him up on the Internet – he is there.  In one YouTube, he tells about his beginnings with the paintings he and I did in Brest.  He said his companion (though not naming me) was interested in art and became a psychologist and he had been interested in psychology and became an artist!  I saw my inspiration of John as a great accomplishment!