Creating a sacred space

ALBANY — When Deerfield-Windsor School graduate Emily McPeters made Biblical sketches that would be used in the design of stained glass windows at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Albany, she had no idea she would be creating a lasting monument to her late grandfather.

McPeters, a sophomore Art major at Furman University, worked with St. Patrick’s Rector Father Jay Weldon to come up with designs from the Bible’s Book of St. John that would grace 20 windows at St. Patrick’s newly built sanctuary at 4800 Old Dawson Road before church members were given an opportunity to pay for inidivual windows as a lasting tribute to loved ones.

McPeters’ grandmother, Anne Wilson, sponsored one of the windows to honor her late husband, Lt. Commander James J. Wilson Jr., a Navy pilot whose plane was shot down in Vietnam in 1963.

“I did the design of the windows before I knew that my grandmother would sponsor one of them,” McPeters said. “It’s pretty neat now to think that it will honor my granddad’s memory.”

St. Patrick’s Rector Father Jay Weldon had decided to forego installation of the stained glass windows at St. Patrick’s when the church’s new sanctuary was completed in December of last year. The decorative windows did not quite fit into St. Patrick’s construction budget, so he saw the windows as a “down-the-road” project.

“My original plan was to finish the stained glass windows down the road, to be financially responsible with the church’s funding,” Weldon said. “But as we prepared to move into the new sanctuary, more and more people started asking questions (about the windows) and I realized that there was more interest than I thought there had been.”

One of the questioners was member Joanne Morton, who wanted to know what Weldon planned to do about the stained glass windows. What Weldon did was put her in charge of the project.

“I basically had one idea that I thought would be best for the windows: Give the church members who had been here longest the opportunity for first refusal to sponsor a window,” Morton said. “My husband, Jerry, had sales experience, and he told me what I needed to do to sell the windows. Of course, I ignored him and just went up to members and said, ‘You want to buy one of the windows?’ And just about everyone said yes.”

Anne Wilson was one of the first to sign up for a window sponsorship.

“I met James when we were 12, and he was my childhood sweetheart,” she said. “He was shot down in ‘63, at the start of our involvement in Vietnam, and I thought it would be a nice tribute to honor him with one of the church’s windows. I told my children, Georgeanne McPeters and James J. Wilson, and they agreed. Of course, I made the decision before I even knew who would be designing the windows.”

Emily McPeters was helping out with St. Patrick’s Vacation Bible School program when Weldon mentioned his ideas for the windows. She went home that night and drew sketches that would be the centerpiece for the church’s windows.

“When Father Jay saw what she’d done, he literally went …,” Wilson said, opening her mouth and eyes wide. “We were all amazed at the detail in her work. My specialty is historic preservation, and these couldn’t be better.”

McPeters said she’d never really done paintings of Christ before.

“I’d done an abstract of creation, but no real paintings depicting Jesus,” she said. “I’ve seen the first seven windows, and I’m quite pleased with them. I see the original designs I came up with in the windows, although there were obvious changes made to fit the format.”

Weldon agrees with Wilson’s assessment of his reaction to McPeters’ work.

“I told Emily some of my ideas, and the next night she came in with these sketches that were really quite wonderful,” the Rector said. “That’s when I got excited about this project.”

The church got two bids from companies that specialize in decorative glass, one from Lynchburg, Va., and another from Dothan, Ala., and initially contracted with the Virginia company. When that company did not uphold its contractual obligations, St. Patrick’s had its deposit returned and called the Alabama company, Custom Glass Designs.

“It was wonderful that Graceson (Glass, the proprietor of Custom Glass) took us back,” Joanne Morton said. “I guess that shows you that God was involved in this. Graceson was the right person for this project.”

Glass, whose father-in-law, Howard Whitaker, founded Custom Glass Designs in 1975, said he was disappointed when he didn’t initially get the St. Patrick’s job.

“I really enjoyed working with Joanne, Emily and the folks at St. Patrick’s,” Glass, who has been involved in the family business since 1994, said. “I was disappointed when they decided to go with the other company. So this turned out to be a blessing for us to get this opportunity.”

The St. Patrick’s project is one of almost 90 that Custom Glass has completed for churches in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

St. Patrick’s will dedicate its newly installed stained glass windows on the Sunday of Thanksgiving week (Nov. 28). It promises to be a welcome ceremony.

“It is in (the Episcopal church’s) tradition to create a sacred space for worship,” Weldon said. “It’s important that all of you is engaged: sight, sound, brain, heart. That’s why this project is important to our church. We’re creating that sacred space.”