BENZONIA, MI -- Gwen Frostic Prints, just outside Benzonia, MI, has been producing unique stationary from block prints of nature scenes for decades.
Bill Frostic, Gwen's nephew, said, "She was always drawing and cutting blocks and writing quotations down and filing them away until she was ready to use them."
Bill has been running the presses since Gwen moved her shop from Frankfort to River Road.
Frostic said, "All our note paper, books and napkins, placemats, everything is printed on Heidelberg letter presses and they're 50 - 60 years old, they don't make them anymore."
Gwen passed away in 2001, but new owners, Greg and Kim Forshee are doing everything they can to keep her legacy alive.
Kim Forshee said, "Her story is quite beautiful you know, to move out here in 1964, handicapped with the polio, a single woman at that time, she had a lot of odds against her and she was very successful, and she wanted to give; she said, a bit of serenity to a world that was becoming, to her, quite chaotic."
The Forshees share Gwen's love for the shop.
Forshee said, "I would say 90 percent or 95 percent of the people that come here have emotional attatchment, a childhood memory, their grandmother brought them here, or their grandfather or parents. They grew up coming here, they now bring their children here."
and they're doing their best to maintain Gwen's vision.
Forshee said, "We'll never change her original line, that is Gwen, and that will always be. But, with the times, you know, Gwen was a very innovative woman and she in some ways was ahead of her time and we believe she would have continued to do that. We're starting to layer her artwork differently. Such as our new calendar this year, our 2012 calendar."
So, they're trying a few new twists on some old favorites; in addition to the new calendar, they're making jewelry and embroidered products like t-shirts, hats and tote bags.
