Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

When I was a kid, I would sew a lot.

I knit and beaded and quilted, and every one of those kind of handcraft hobbies that you can learn as a kid, I did all of those.

And I loved the word "notions, thread and bobbins and needles and beads and all those little things, and at the time I I didn’t really know what what the business was gonna look like.

I knew it was going involve jewelry, but I liked the idea that it was anything lovely, could be a notion.

So it all fit under that on umbrella, and I liked the idea of making notions myself and finding other artists who had kind of a similar passion for well made beautiful items.

They would all fit in that light lovely notions category.

What’s your art?

My art is jewelry.

It always has been.

I’ve There have been periods of my life where I’ve experienced and played with other mediums.

I do love to knit.

I love fiber arts.

I’m a 3D person.

I’m not a 2D person.

I can’t draw your portrait and have it look like you.. I can make it in wire, and I’ve always been that way.

I used to think say, the world is in three dimensions, and I don’t have the kind of brain that can put them into two.

So I’ve always thought of, no matter what the medium is in some sort of sculptural way, and I love jewelry because it’s artwork that you connect to.

It’s very personal, you put it on your body, you carry it with you you, you carry it throughout your day, and you interact with it differently than you would, say, a painting on a wall where you kind of get used to it and forget that it’s there.

You carry it with you, you hold it on your skin, and that makes it a very personal kind of art that you have a lot of feelings about, and I think that’s really special.

Where’s the challenge in the actual design or in the making of the gold?

The time to make it, I think, is the challenge.

I am a person who has 100 sketchbooks and more ideas than I will ever have time to build in ten lifetimes And when I was younger, I worried that if I made them all, I would run out of ideas, and I’m 38 and that hasn’t happened yet, and I still have more ideas than I will ever have time to build in real life.

So for me, it’s the time.

The creative part of it is something that just comes.

I dream in pictures, I think of things as I’m falling asleep, and as I wake up and when I’m all the time.

So, what are you making, and what are you selling, and what are we buying?

So, I make demifine jewelry.

Demifine kind of a category in between costume jewelry and fine jewelry This is a material not a lot of artists, at least locally, are working with.

It’s called 14 karat gold fill So everyone is familiar with gold plated costume jewelry that wears off, and then solid gold, which is lovely and wonderful and very expensive.

14 karat gold fill falls in the middle.

So the core is jeweler’s brass, and but the layer of gold on the surface is about 100 times thicker than a pleating.

So you can wear it for years, you can work with it and solder it and swim and sleep and shower and do all your regular daily life activities, and it’s not going to peel or tarnish or wear through So it’s a really great demifine material, where you get a lot of the benefits of 14 karat gold, but you’re not getting that price tag, but you’re still left with a piece of jewelry that’s gonna last for decades, and I think it’s really special that you can create an heirloom that isn’t the value isn’t necessarily in how many thousands of dollars it was, but in the craftsmanship and the memories that your kids have of you playing with that jewelry.

I want to make those things that live in rotation on your dresser, that make you feel special and put together and ready for your day, or, you know, the pair of your earrings that catch the light when you’re getting in and out of the car for the millionth time, and you go, "Oh, yeah, I look good today."

So, first, I’m gonna start with just giving this piece of 14 karat gold fill wire, just a really gentle arch shape.

And then tweak that a little bit.

I’m gonna bring it over here to the block.

I think it’s a little swish in barrier flux.

And then.. it turns green for a second.

This just protects the metal during the soldering process.

And I really like to see the hands of the maker in the process.

I like everything to be perfectly imperfect, so I don’t want every shape to be exactly the same.

I don’t want every earring to be exactly the same.

So I like that little bit of imperfection.

Now I’m gonna solder on the top of the earring right here.

This is a very finicky process, but I happen to love finicky, tiny soldering, so it works well for me.

Once that’s soldered on, I’m gonna cool it down in a water bath right here, so give it a little quench.

and I’m gonna take it back over to the anvil to give it some texture.

Tweak the shape a little bit again, and it goes back in the flux.

I’m gonna set it off to the side for a second, ’cause now I get to make bubbles.

Love making the bubbles.

So, every one of these styles with the bubbles, every bubble is hand cut, hand melted one by one, and then they’re all attached one by one.

And all these hello hello sunshine, hello pebble Styles, have become my bestsellers, which probably wasn’t a great business thing, because they take a lot of time, but I love making them.

This is also a way I use up my scrap.

I try and minimize waste as much as I can in my studio, so this style originally started out with a lot of silver scrap and cutting up all the leftover sheet metal from making my halo stud earringrings.

So that way this doesn’t have to go to a refiner.

I can just reuse it here in my studio.

And then I will bring the earring back over.

and attach these bubbles one by one.

All right.

back into the water.

And there you.

have it.

Those are my best selling Hello Sunshine earrings.

I’m looking at the earrings that I understand you just made to today.

Yeah, we made these you during the demonstration.

Yeah.

And, I mean, they’re unique, they’re different.

How did you make them?

So these are what I call magpie earrings, and this started because they’re always one of a kind, they’re always asymmetrical, and they use a lot of unique elements.

So it started because I was sorting and cleaning out all my little bit boxes on my dining room table and kind of making piles of all the things like, oh, these are little dangles, and these are gemstone settings, and these are these different shapes.

And I ended up with a dining room table absolutely covered in little piles, and my oldest got home and said, "Mom, you have a problem.

This is way too much."

So I realized, like, I’m a professional magpie.

I make and collect all these little trinkets, and they’re beautiful, and I really want to showcase that.

So I started making these asymmetrical kind of totem earrings, and they have become one of my signatures, so.

What’s your favorite part of this process in creating art?

I love late at night when I’m in the studio by myself, and I can make something I’m really that I can’t go to sleep until I make it, that I’m so excited to make.

And usually that’s a new idea or a new technique.

Sometimes it’s just that quiet time soldering in the studio by myself at night.

I love the process of making, and I always have.

You self disclose that you’ve always wanted to do this since a kid.

How have your artistic skills changed over the years?

I am a forever learner.

I love learning new techniques.

I love reading about new techniques.

I love taking classes or exploring different mediums and then you know, seeing how they apply or how I can apply all those different skills to metalsmithing.

So I have built skills since I was a little kid.

Some of my best selling braceletselets use nuts I learned in Girl Scouts.

So it’s just a lifelong process of adding skills to your repertoire, and then sometimes you don’t really know where they’re gonna come into play, but if you find it interesting, or it grabs your attention, then I think you should do what you can to learn and embrace that interest and trust that it will apply itself at some point.

tells me that part of your family history is with you all the time here at the studio.

It is.

So I come from a line of artists and craftsmen and people who really are passionate about creating beautiful things, and my grandpa, Joe, who passed away last year he was a woodworker for his entire life, and this was his workbench that he built in his house.

So this workbench was in my grandparents’ basement for my entire childhood, and when he passed away, it came to me.

So I have some of I have a lot of his tools, and I’m really honored to be able to use that as my work surface every day.

Where do we get your stuff?

I’m living losing track, but I think I’m selling in wholesale accounts in 44 states.

I do sell wholesale online, all over the country as well as Puerto Rico and Canada.

You can shop at notionsofovevely.com.

Ironically enough, I’m not selling anywhere in Kalamazoo yet, so I need to figure that one out.

But you can always send me a message.

If you’re shopping online, I do offer locals pickup And I do a lot of one of a kind or custom projects for people in town.

In fourth grade, I met Jon Scieszka.

He did like the Stinky Cheese Man and the True Story of the Three Little Pigs and those were like some of my favorite books.

And so he did a school visit at the elementary school that my mom worked at.

and she let me skip school, and I got to go and I got to like see his presentation.

And he was just so much fun.

I just thought he was the funniest person I’d ever met.

I brought my book for him to sign.

And I told him at the time, I was like, I am going to be a writer when I grow up."

And he was like, "Oh, really?"

He’s like, "W, are you writing now?"

And at the time, I was like, "Yes, but I was like, "Oh, yeah, I write, you know, I have fun drawing and writing.

He’s like, "Then you’re a writer now."

And I was just like, "Jon Scieszka thinks I’m a writer."

Like, it, like, opened my brain and my heart, and I was just like, I felt so seen and all the ways that just spoke you know, to my core and just gave me just sort of the confidence to be like, yes, I am a writer.

I’m Emmy Kastner, and I am an author, an illustrator of books for kids.

You know, picture books generally, they say four to seven, but picture books are for everyone.

My middle schooler, my high schooler, everyone in my house still.. are the tougoughest critics, you think?

I mean, it’s really hard to impress them.

They’re like, oh, okay, cool.

Another book.

My students would be like, "You should make a book."

And I’d have them make books in our classroom and I’d bring in picture books that taught high school, but we brought in picture books.

I feel like it’s such an elevated way to tell a story with visuals and marrying that with text to make meaning.

And so, yeah, I had my students do it all the time and finally I was like, okay, I should do this.

What was your first book?

My first, well, my first published book in the world that you can buy at a bookstore would be the first book in the nerdy.

Baby series called Space.

It was like a nice sort of jump into the book world as a science teacher, a former science teacher.

I was like, "Oh, I’d be really cute if kids were just reciting science effects."

I was like, "Oh, there should be a book like that."

And I was like, " I don’t really know a book like that yet.

And so then I just like took my own advice because I’m constantly like, Tell me that story.

And so I was like, I gotta write that story.

So that was my, my first one.

So you begin with a series.

Yeah.

Nerdy babies?

Yeah.

Where’d that come from?

Well, yeah.

So when we, when my agent took the book to publishers there was a lot of interest, which was exciting and very new and surprising.

And so it went to auction between the few houses, publishing houses, and they all wanted like four books.

And I was just like, I just have one written right now.

But I have other ideas.

And I think that’s how we had pitched it.

Like it could be a series.

So yeah, that kind of started it.

And I I didn’t want to just make science books, lots of other ideas.

So from there, the ball started rolling.

And then there is So Tortoise Dug?

Yes.

So that book, So Tortoise Dug, is about a little mouse and a little tortoise who are friends.

They’re based on real animals.

There’s a gopher tortoise, and a Florida mouse, and they are burough mates.

And I was actually researching for a spread in nerdy babies rocks, and I needed a cutaway of like an underground.

situation.

And I was like, I want an animal that maybe we don’t know, lives in a borough.

So I was just doing some research and I found the gopher tortoise, and I was like, "Huh, there are keystone species and like over 300 animals share a burrow.

And it’s like snakes and skunks and bunnies and like mol skinks and moths and like all these animals.

And I was just like,What?

It was so fascinating.

And so I read this like scientific article that said um so the Florida mouse and the gopher Tortoise have been burrow mates for millions of years, and sometimes the Florida mouse goes to visit the armadillo, but they always come back.

And I was like, oh, that’s its own story."

So it’s really the story of this Florida mouse and this gopher tortoise, and there’s a visit to an armadillo.

All the research they think.

Yeah, so it’s you do.

Yeah.

How do you do this?

Do you sit at your studio in silence and write?

What’s your You know, I’m pretty, I’m all over the place.

So much of my writing just sort of.

I think about things a lot, and kind of like, we’ll talk through ideas, my husband.

I’m always like telling him an idea for a book and like working through what it would be.

I’ve got some good friends who are always lending an ear.

So kind of happens a lot.

And then I’ll when the point when I’m like sitting down and writing, like that happens by my computer, sure.

But sometimes I’m like also inspired by like figuring out the look or the style or the way into the story.

So I bounce around a lot.

I’ve got a few stations in my in my studio here, where I do that.

So this is an illustration of Arnold Lobel as a pencil from my book called Outside In and the Inside Out which is a picture book biography of Arnold Lobel.

So he wrote and illustrated the Frost and Toad series, probably what he’s most famous for.

And nearly 100 books, and I was obsessed with him himself as a kid, and as a young adult, and now as someone who makes books, he’s just one of my favorites.

So making a book about his life was just so exciting and finding out how to like make art for this book.

All my books are very different as far as my style and process go.

Here, when he was making art, he used watercolor, ink, and pencil.

And so I use acrylic quash.

That’s kind of like my through line of all my different books that I’m doing.

So this book is acrylic Guash, pen and pencil.

So I he was a guy who really loved the silly and the absurd, and I wanted my book to reference that a lot.

So every page of this book is some sort of reference to one of his books, whether it be in composition.

There’s Easter eggs everywhere.

Characters.

This was actually the last thing I painted for the book I was trying to figure out how to make this page a little more exciting.

And so I I was just kind of feeling stuck, and I was like, oh, I need ideas.

And my husband, I had mentioned this book called Mary Mary February, and one of his books that I hadn’t seen yet.

And in all my research, I saw most of his books.

And so I’m past my deadline of making this book, and I was just like, I gotta finish it.

I don’t know what to do.

And this book shows up on our doorstep, Mary, Mary February.

And the last page of the book is a pencil with a face on it.

And this spread is about him finding the words to tell his stories, because he was a more, he thought of himself as an accomplished illustrator and a, you know, sort of accidental writer.

And so this page in my book is about him finding the words to tell his stories.

And so making him a pencil just kind of felt pretty perfect and exciting.

Since he was such a sort of nervous writer, he talks about how he would just sit in his favorite chair.

He had, like, a specific notebook and a specific pen that he would use to write the words or a pencil, and he would chew on the pencils.

So there are some little bite marks in this pencil to honor the nervous writer that Arnold Lobel was.

What else do we need to know about Emmy Kastner?

Um, I am I don’t know, like, what do we need to know?

Um My favorite part, probably outside of just making books and the creative process and what that looks like.

I mean, you know, that’s it’s so much fun working with my editor and my art director, and like shaping a book and really, like you know, making it ready to be a finished product that you can hold in your hands.

But outside of that creative process, I have so much fun doing school visits, and that is such a huge part of the job where I’m going into schools.

I’m, you know, I have fun presentations,’re doing interactive games and drawings and reading the books and just getting kids excited about books, because that happens happened for me.

I mean, I was little.

The preschool I went to was in the library, and I just loved being around books like Frog and Toad and Amelia Bedelia and like all these books as a kid just meant the world to me.

And so I was a kid who was like, I’m going to be a writer.

And I started writing stories as a kid.

In fourth grade, I typed out a book called The Bear Who Came Alive, so Wait, is that on the show?

No, No, I think it’s in my parents’ attic.

So now it’s just full circle, and me doing those school visits, it’s just so exciting to connect.

I love being around kids, and I love be creative with kids.

And, yeah, that’s my favorite part, probably.

But you just recently changed some fourth graders graders, Pursuit in life.

Emmy keep up your good work.

Thank you for you, and the coffee’s great.

I’ll have another cup.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Thank you.

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