Baltimore church he admired and 

 asked if they would accept a small 

 stained glass window. It would cost 

 them nothing, he told them. He 

 would show them a drawing first, and 

 if they weren't pleased with the 

 window, he would be willing to 

 remove it, he recalls, chuckling at his 

 earnestness. 



"It was like asking someone, 

 'May I mow your grass, please, for 

 free?'" he says. 



LeCompte created the window 

 and was halfway through another 

 when church members whose son 

 had been killed asked if he would 

 make the second window as a 

 memorial. He agreed and was thrilled 

 when the family offered him 

 payment. Until then, he had worked 

 for friends and family, accepting 

 whatever they gave. Before the second 

 window was complete, another family 

 who had lost a loved one appeared, 

 requesting a window. Then another family 

 came, and another, all who had lost young 

 relatives. 



"And you know, from that day to 

 this, which is not just a few days," 

 LeCompte says slowly, remembering, 

 "I've never been without a commission. 

 Sometimes, there's been only one, but 

 I've always had at least something to 

 work on, and that has made it possible 

 for me to do this for a living as well as 

 for love." 



In Washington National Cathedral, 



Church of the Servant altarpiece 



LeCompte will soon have created 45 

 windows, including the West Rose, 

 which measures 26 feet across. In 1999, 

 he will finish the last two of a series of 

 1 8 clerestory windows, each 1 5 feet 

 wide by 30 feet tall. 



A 23-year project, the windows 

 will have the clarity and brilliance that 

 once blazed down into the great 

 medieval churches of France, such as 

 the cathedral at Chartres, before those 

 windows became clouded and worn by 

 time. Unlike those of his contemporar- 

 ies who sought to simulate the aged 



patina medieval glass windows 

 now wear, LeCompte, a self-taught 

 historian and avid researcher, tries 

 to recapture their former sparkle 

 even as his style is distinctively 

 modern. So unusual was his work 

 that for years after his return from 

 the war, he received no commis- 

 sions from Washington National 

 Cathedral, where the trend at that 

 time was very conservative. 



LeCompte' s windows retain 

 their transparency, are bold, 

 inventive and often playful, says 

 Dieter Goldkuhle, an internation- 

 ally known stained glass artisan 

 who has worked with LeCompte on 

 windows for the church since 1967. 

 Unlike the cathedral's windows of the 

 1940s and 1950s, which tended to be 

 'studio' productions, his have a soul, 

 Goldkuhle says. 



Yet behind LeCompte' s style is 

 a master willing to labor with the elusive 

 medium of light, studying where the 

 window will be placed, the angle and 

 strength of the sunlight touching it and 

 where the viewer will stand to gaze upon it. 



At the center of his work are the 

 figures and images he loves — simple 

 definitions yet infused with life. Like the 

 man who creates them, they sing of the 

 splendor of life and work. 



"In every case, my effort is for the 

 windows to be beautiful — if I can 

 achieve that — to have an elegance and 

 style, but also to have energy." □ 



In Wilmington, LeCompte' s work includes a 4-foot circular window at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center 

 chapel. Church of the Servant has one of his paintings as an altarpiece and two stained glass windows. 

 In a year or two, the church will have another of his windows. 

 LeCompte also is working on a large stained glass window for Garber United Methodist Church in New Bern. □ 



COASTWATCH 15 



