Meet Kate Dieringer | Objects Conservator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kate Dieringer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kate, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I am originally from Northwest Indiana. I grew up in a very family centric environment, and both of my parents always encouraged my sister and I to do our best in school and life, but also enjoy what we are learning and doing. I always gravitated more to the arts than anything else. Photography, sculpture, and ceramics were my go-tos. I did have some hiccups right after high school and made the choice to wait on college. That choice gave me the opportunity to decide what my long terms plans were going to be. When I returned to school, my passion for arts guided me to a fine arts degree with a focus in photography and ceramics. In my senior year, I had an amazing art history professor, who has since become a trusted counselor and friend, mentioned art conservation and it changed the whole path I had planned for myself. I decided to move to Florence, Italy and get a second bachelor’s degree in art conservation. Then, I moved to San Francisco for an internship, then to Cardiff, Wales for grad school, before finally planting roots in Charleston.
I think having a family behind me that was always supportive and encouraging, allowed for me to follow my crazy dreams, literally around the globe. Not only did I find a career that I am passionate about, after changing my mind multiple times, but I was able to step out of my comfort zone and experience people and places that I would have never thought was possible.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Art conservation is not an easy field to get into. I truly fell in love with art conservation during my undergraduate studies in Italy. I had many professors that were incredibly passionate about their work. They were so encouraging and pushed us outside our comfort zones. I had one professor that would always stand behind us and simply state “coraggio” (courage), and I still hear him in the back of my head while I’m working.

The biggest challenge I faced was the notion that everything within a conservation career was “hard”. Hard to find work, hard to get internship hours, hard to get into grad school, etc. While I like to think of myself as just one of the lucky ones, I was able to get into the schools I wanted and was able to find internships and a job following graduation. While I know it was not luck, because I worked really hard putting in an upwards of 100 applications in the spring of my second year alone, I am grateful for everything. I was willing to move and change my whole life for the job and career that I was searching for. I put in job application after job application hoping that all my hard work would pay off, and it sure did!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love being able to be a tourist in Charleston! Every time I have family visit, we try to do something new each time. I really enjoy Boone Hall Plantation and McLeod Plantation; they both give a more in-depth look at how the enslaved people worked and lived on the land and the newer Internation African American Museum in downtown has been a beautiful addition to the history and resilience of the enslaved people that came into Charleston through Gadsden’s Wharf. I like to take people on a historic boat tour to get a small portion of the civil war history, and most importantly, my place of employment at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center where the HL Hunley is housed. It’s always nice to take beautiful walk around downtown, have a peaceful day at the beach, or soak in more history of the different sites around Charleston. I also went to Cypress Gardens for the first time this year and LOVED it!

For drinks and food, I love seafood, so Gillie’s Seafood, Fleet Landing, or Leon’s are top choices. Holy City Brewing or Edmunds Oast are my go-to breweries. Paddock and Whiskey, Off Track Ice Cream, and Lewis Barbecue are staples on my list of places to eat. But I usually like to try to find a place I haven’t been to yet!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Wholeheartedly, my family and friends back in Indiana. Without them, I would not have had the courage to do any of this. I moved to two different countries, and two different states for my career, and they have always been my biggest and loudest cheerleaders. I would not have gotten through school, especially grad school in a foreign country during Covid, without them!

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-dieringer/

Other: https://www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/conservation/index.html

Image Credits
Clemson University, Jane Henderson, Gaby Cortes, Tanya Nakamoto