This made me sad. I made this place an annual visit each year…and I’ve been going there since I was a very young girl. I knew Gwen.
In the Detroit FreePress
Farewell to Gwen Frostic?
Sad to report that another Michigan institution has fallen on hard times: Gwen Frostic Prints/Presscraft Papers, the charming little printing studio tucked into the woods near Benzonia, experienced a bank foreclosure in late October and its lockedout staff was unable to fill Christmas catalog orders. Owner Pam Lorenz sent letters of apology to patrons in December, and expressed hope that a way still could be found to ?keep Gwen?s legacy alive.? The late artist, who died in 2001, a day before her 95th birthday, specialized in hand-cut block prints of critters, flora, fauna and other elements inspired by nature. Read more on the com*pany?s Web site, www.gwenfrostic.com.
I still have at least one of her books, Beyond Time - the paper was also hand-made.
I know the one is signed and was a gift to me from Neil’s late wife Bonnie.
In fact, there are some of Gwens poems in our Poets Creek - I called and got permission to use them on here.
I think I knew she had passed, but no idea she was 95. Wow!
Thanks for letting us know.
Hugs,
LF
Sad to hear. We visited her place a few times. We still have some unopened note card packs. Truly a unique Michigan institution. I hope there will be some way to keep it going.
Sad. The banks don’t much care though, do they?
I used to work for a bank that touted itself as the “Warm Hearted Bank.” If the truth be known, I never met a banker with a warm heart.
Back not quite 43 years ago, a young man recently married and enrolled in the second semester of his junior year in college found out he should have been keeping up witht he checks he had been writing. The president of the local bank loaned him $300 on the good name of his family to be paid back when he graduated from college in 18 months. Unfortunately Mr. George Weeks died several years ago and left no heirs in the business.
I fill sure he has a modern counterpart in a small home bank somewhere, but I haven’t seen him myself. The federal regs may keep him from doing things like that now days. Mr. Weeks knew all he had to do was tell my Dad if I didn’t pay back the loan and worse than my credit rating would be ruined. My wife has had the checkbook ever since, which is probably why being without a paycheck for the last year has not been a disaster.
Frostic’s was doing OK…even through this recession. When Gwenn died, she left $13M to WMU…on top making sure that the company would remain for the employees. The company made for a good living. The problem was that the person tasked to take it over also had a financing agreement with the bank, tied his Brookside Inn business in nearby Beulah to an unrelated printing business he runs, creating financial problems for both companies.
It’s currently in forcloser but, hopefully this will all get worked out and the doors will open again. But this has been going on since October. I had no clue in September when I was there last. I really have a hard time believing it could be gone forever. Someone would be wise to pick this one up. Oh to win a big lottery.
Sad. Wish someone could have taken over with just her simple mission at heart, but not an easy thing.
What a wonderful place the place itself was, folded into nature, the integration of stone, water, plants. It may not have been fly fishing per se, but if, like her fellow Michigander Robert Traver, you fish because you love the environs of fishing, it was easy to appreciate
