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Sugar and spice and ... glassblowing?
Friday, Dec. 4, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photos
Renée Victoria Hovanec, 9, sketches ideas for future glasswork pieces.
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What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice — and tap, banjo, physics, chemistry, animals, archery, rifle marksmanship, Harry Potter books and art-quality hand-blown glass pieces — that's what one little girl is made of.
Her name is Renée Victoria Hovanec, 9, and her parents have dubbed her "The 21st-Century Renaissance Girl."
Renée is the daughter of local artists Jerry Hovanec and his wife, Ruthann Uithol. The family lives in Washington, D.C., during the week, but spends weekends at their second home in Port Republic.
Hovanec has been designing and blowing glass art and sculpture since 1980. His signed and dated work is found in museums and public and private collections worldwide, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery, according to the announcement of their annual open house scheduled for this weekend. Since 1994, Hovanec and Uithol have located their glassworks studio in Lusby on the site of the historic T. Rayner Wilson blacksmith shop.
Dr. Paul Parkman of Kensington, a long-time collector of American Studio Glass, has several pieces of Hovanec's work and gives him high praise.
"[My wife and] I have known Jerry for a long, long time," he related in a telephone interview. "He used to be a Capuchin friar and a potter before becoming a glassblower. He does wonderful work."
During the week, Hovanec is the installation coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Uithol is the collections manager for Hillwood Museum and Gardens. On weekends, they work together at the glassworks.
"We collaborate on serious pieces that we do," he said, adding "Renée is our best collaboration; she's the future of the shop."
According to Hovanec, Renée has shown interest in the glassworks nearly since infancy. "Renée was always in the shop. And she just keeps on doing things — not because we push her but because she wants to do it."
He recalls that, at the age of 3, she started getting involved.
"We were having an open house and I was at the bench rolling a [glass] pipe back and forth and she walked over on the cold side of the bench to help me roll it. The next year she was sitting with me at the bench and one day asked me, ‘Daddy, can we go down to the shop? There's something I want to make.' She worked in a great way — she was careful and respected that things were hot and dangerous, but she wasn't afraid."
Why does she like glassblowing?
"You never know how a piece will turn out," she says, "and there's no bad."
Apparently not. Last year, U.S. Ambassador Marianne Myles selected Renée's "The Four Seasons Vase Series" to be displayed for three years in the Ambassador's Residence in Praia, Cape Verde, located west of Senegal in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The loan is part of the U.S. Department of State's "Art in Embassies" program, and Renée is the youngest artist to participate.
But her interests are varied. When asked what else interests her, she didn't hesitate. "My seventh Harry Potter book, chemistry and physics, animals and my scooter," she replied. She also has studied tap dancing, experimented with several musical instruments, is a capable archer and a proficient marksman with a rifle, Hovanec says proudly.
Currently, she is in the fourth grade at Stoddert Elementary School in Washington, D.C., a school that has an enrollment of 250 students representing 25 different countries, according to Hovanec. She says her classmates "have a lot of questions" about her glassworks and "they all want a piece of glass."
In 10 years or so, Renée expects to be "in college studying things I like. I'll still be blowing glass," she said.
Renée's glasswork pieces, as well as those created by her parents will be displayed at their open house this weekend. The glass works is located at 9610 H.G. Trueman Road in Lusby, directly across the street from Southern Middle School. The glassworks will be open from 4 to 8 p.m. today and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow and on Sunday. Parking is available across the street at the school.
