GRAND FORKS — Mary Weaver made it clear she isn’t closing her doors.
“I’m selling the business,” she said.
Weaver, sole proprietor of Browning Arts in downtown Grand Forks, is retiring. She’s had the business since 1993, 12 years after Mark and Emma Browning opened the studio at a location near Central High School.
“We used to be up toward the high school on North Fourth Street,” Weaver said. “When the flood came, I had to move, but this is a really good location.
“It has another arts studio next door (You Are Here). It has the coffee shop on the corner. There are restaurants, Widman’s, and the park.”
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Weaver’s business on North Third Street is up for sale through Oxford Realty. Weaver says it’s a great opportunity for someone with an arts background who wants to run a solid business.
Browning Arts does picture framing and restoration and has an art gallery. Weaver can also mat, shrink wrap, and stretch canvas. The one thing she does that others don’t in town is restoration.
“There’s a lot more than just pictures,” she said. “There’s two-dimensional work and three-dimensional work. There are miscellaneous things that I’ve found — a vintage typewriter, things like that, that I’ve had for a long time.”
Michael’s, Hobby Lobby and Forks Frame Up, some of the other art businesses in town, do not perform restoration. If Weaver doesn’t sell her business, that would create a hole in the Grand Forks arts scene.
She said she has a few consigned pieces left in the store.
“It could be that the new owners will continue to sell them,” she said.
Weaver received a Master of Fine Arts degree at UND. She began working a job and eventually decided to move into ownership when Browning Arts became available.
“I checked it out,” she said. “It was related to what I was studying all those years, working with art. Having an arts background helps a lot when people bring things in. They just want you to look at it and see if it’s worth money, because you’ve seen this happen on Antiques Roadshow.”
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She can tell her customers if something is original.
The business has been listed for about three weeks. Weaver says the best scenario would be for somebody with arts experience to buy the name and contents, stay at the present location or relocate.
“If it closed, that would be a big loss to the community because I get referrals from other frame places,” she said. “I’ll do repairs and so forth, and restoration, and I get referrals from the North Dakota Museum of Art, among other places.
“I’ve become the only person doing restoration from between probably Winnipeg to Minneapolis. They come from long distances to have pieces restored sometimes, whether it’s dirty, has a hole or the paint is chipped off. I’m totally independent, and it’s the kind of gallery that has all original art in it.”
Weaver said customers see things in her store that don’t appear at a furniture store or a dental office. So she enjoys entertaining UND fine arts class students who come in to see the original art.
“They need to see, the public also needs to see, stuff different from a dental office,” she said. “That stuff is reproductions or posters or else it’s stuff that has been cranked out for tourist trades.”
Weaver just wants Browning Arts’ reputation to continue thanks to the initial efforts of Mark and Emma Browning.
“It’s time to retire,” she said. “The thing is, I’m gone past retirement age. It’s time for a new person, with a new energy and a new viewpoint, because there are things that could be done here, like classes.
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“It’s just time to pass the baton. I’ll miss the place. I’ll miss being downtown every day.”
