Diane Frankenberger: 2024 Governor’s Awards Spotlight
Individual Category Recipient
As the day nears for the 2024 South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts, The Hub is shining the spotlight on this year’s four recipients.
We are happy to introduce them to you in greater detail. This is the schedule:
- Today: Diane Frankenberger (Individual Category)
- May 8: Dr. Minuette Floyd (Arts in Education Category)
- May 13: South Carolina Philharmonic (Organization Category)
- May 15: Campbell Frost (Lifetime Achievement)
Diane Frankenberger
In the Lowcountry, Diane Frankenberger is known as a powerhouse of wisdom, knowledge, discernment, passion, and humility. She inspires and assists anyone interested in creating with textiles; from children looking to sew their first doll to artists exhibiting in world-class institutions. As the owner of People, Places, and Quilts, a fabric store and educational space in its 34th year (named one of the Top Ten Quilt Shops in North America), her impact on the arts, for the state of South Carolina and beyond, is immeasurable.
Frankenberger is a self-taught folk artist herself, creating works of art with fabric that have been displayed across the state in both individual and group shows. She is a community builder, serving as a founding board member of Summerville DREAM and working with the Main Street Program to in the 1990s reinvigorate a dying historic downtown, later supporting its thriving operations through today. She also serves on the board of the Greater Summerville Dorchester County Chamber of Commerce and the Dorchester Heritage Center, always seeking to make a better South Carolina through education and engagement.
In 2018, Frankenberger’s idea to turn the old Summerville Town Post Office into a free-to-all nonprofit community art center took shape because of her reputation in the community. It attracted a dream team of original board members and the support of the town and funders. The 11,000 square foot art center opened in 2020 and is now a bustling, thriving center of creativity, arts education, art studios, and art exhibitions, free and open to the public, welcoming more than 25,000 people of all ages a year—all thanks to her dream, hard work, and persistence.
Frankenberger runs by a value that she and her actions be “good, not great,” removing what she perceives as ego from any deed done and allowing her actions and impact to be straight from the heart. Her “goodness” was honored by the local Chamber of Commerce in 2022 with the Berlin G. Meyers Lifetime Achievement Award. Courageous and energetic as ever, she continues to create and support opportunities for arts education through both her shop and Public Works Art Center (of which she remains a board member) to inspire artists through her art and her textiles, and to work to create a more colorful South Carolina.
The South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts are coming to SCETV on Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 7 p.m. ET.
South Carolina ETV, the state’s public educational broadcasting network, will broadcast the awards ceremony through its 11-station TV network that spans the state. Viewers can access the broadcast via livestream on the homepage of SCETV.org; by using a digital antenna; or through cable, satellite, and certain streaming live TV providers. Further information about accessing SCETV is available here.