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Rowan LeCompte
Have you ever been so inspired by something, so moved that it changed
your life? That is what happened to Rowan LeCompte when he first visited –
the then unfinished –
Washington National Cathedral. "I was
obsessed by this building as in nothing in my life before." This
extraordinary artist would spend over 30 years creating 45 of the 215
stained glass windows in the cathedral.
It was a chance encounter in 1939 that LeCompte visited the cathedral
during a period when construction was halted due to the depression. It
was this visit that would begin a life-long love of the building. When
he saw Lawrence Saint's Moses window on a later visit, stained glass
would become his passion.
LeCompte received his first commission for the cathedral, a small chapel
window, in 1942 when he was sixteen years old. His final window for the
cathedral was installed in 2001, the last of 18 clerestory windows.
LeCompte has always created stained glass windows the old way –
using hand-blown glass, fired painted glass, and strips of lead. One of
his best-known designs is the West Rose Window or "Creation" window
above the west front portal. It is an abstract depiction of the mystery
of creation with over 10,500 pieces of glass and 25 feet in diameter.
Of his first visit to the cathedral, LeCompte has said, "...once in the
door I could see we were in a magic twilight, a heavenly place. I had
never seen such a thing... and filled with a degree of awsomeness and
beauty and spirit. How else can I say it, that I had never seen in my
life before, or experienced. And I was simply struck, if not dumb, I was
certainly bowled over".
Dan Hardison
Editor, The Episcopal Church and Visual Arts
editor@ecva.org |
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Creation
West Rose Window
Washington National Cathedral
By Rowan LeCompte (Photo credit:
Donovan Marks for Washington National Cathedral)
Creation
West Rose Window
(Detail) |
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Community Arts
The Way of the
Cross
St. James Episcopal Cathedral
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Fresno, California
After three years of work, sculptor Dorothy Gager's 14 Stations of
the Cross were installed along The Way of the Cross, a garden
path leading to the Chapel of the Holy Innocents. Of the stations,
Father Carlos Raines, Dean of St. James Cathedral said, "It's a
ministry for people to grieve over memorials. It's a healing path.
Its intention is for people to connect to God who understands their
hurt and pain."
More . . .
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The
mission of The Episcopal Church and Visual Arts
(ECVA) is to encourage artists, individuals,
congregations, and scholars to engage the visual arts in
the spiritual life of the church. ECVA values the
significance of visual imagery in spiritual formation
and the development of faith, and creates programs to
support those who are engaged in using the visual arts
in spiritual life.
To learn more about ECVA, please visit
www.ecva.org. |
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