LATEST WORKS
FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CARDS | Winter 2025
Twelve exclusive handmade cards on dyed papers featuring sewn and cut-out elements for the families that have stood by me throughout the year.
Our church traditions had led me to contemplate the ways I celebrated the holiday season growing up and how I’d like to continue celebrating with my newfound faith and as a capable designer.
For 2025 I wanted to capture this blending of what used to be, in my mind, two separate ways of observing Christmas by combining their two icons.
Many of the design elements are intentional, symbolic, and sentimental. Thus is the Holiday season.
And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. | Ecclesiastes 4:12
[update] WHERE I’VE BEEN, WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING | 12.01.25
For a person who craves a slow-paced lifestyle, post-grad life has been exhilerating. I have had the pleasure of expanding my work experience to the realm of a corporate nine-to-five...and a seven-to-three and an eight-to-four!
What this afforded me was time to work on my experimental techniques in paper dyeing. Over the past six months I have been able to transition my found-paper collection into ready-to-assemble backstock for projects already underway. I’ve upgraded some equipment, but don’t worry, my bathtub is still in the daily project utilization rotation.
Additionally I’ve had the time to expand my book and paper community connections. I’m beginning to understand why there’s such specific etiquette for trading business cards in Asia -- half the time I have no idea what to do with my hands! Nonetheless, publication and print fairs are a scene I am happy to have found. I truly look forward to these events when they are put on. To experience one from the other side of the booth table is something I am much looking forward to in my career.
I’ve kept the Elks National Memorial as well as the Newberry Library in frequent circulation, and I try to keep semi-regular attendance at Chicago Graphic Design Club events. Yes, it’s a delight to meet and speak with other designers and book makers my age, but there’s something about meeting veterans of their craft that ignites the student in me. It’s a privilege to meet my comrades in the art of paper and book.
CURVED STRUCTURE SIZE VARIANTS | Fall 2025
After honing my process for casebinding curved book covers, I began experimenting with alternate sizes. Palm-sized, nesting books have been an idea of mine since working on my children’s book, and they were a beloved form during my early years as a young reader. During the autumn months, I made several trips to the Newberry Library, both to envision my work as part of its archive and to conduct much-needed genealogical research. This was a deeply sentimental period for me, and I began to think about leaving heirlooms for future generations of my family, alongside reflecting on what has already been left for me. Many ideas are planned for these small structures like geneaological works for big and little hands.
WATERS OF MARCH - SERIES | Summer 2025
What started as an artistic interpretation of the final exam for my Tai Chi Chuan class has become what I believe to be the hallmark of Paper Eater Studios thus far. During the course, I took up the recommended reading: Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain by Chungliang Al Huang. To me, his speaking style -- the book being a transcription of time spent in classes with Huang -- perfectly reflected the essence of the Tai Chi experience. With great care, I embarked on the construction of my (one day famous) curved bookboard covers for Resting on the Substance of the Water and Drops of the Jordan, its sister edition, soon to be completed.
Each book’s content is drawn from carefully selected quotations from its source text, while the design motifs play into themes of spirituality and meditative practice. One book exemplifies Eastern philosophies, and the other, Western. Intended to cradel one another, the two volumes will most likely do so rarely.
Resting on the Substance of the Water was gifted to my professor at the conclusion of his class.
SENIOR SHOWCASE | Spring 2025
As part of the 2025 graduating class at Columbia College Chicago, the School of Design held a senior exhibition to showcase each student’s culmination of design works. My two artist books Obliquity of a Natural Soul and My Bunch of Books were on full display for flip-through. The companion exhibition catalogue also featured these works alongside other early-stage experiments in my paper-dyeing process.
[PUBLICATION EXCERPT]
“Emma Bloom is a lifelong student, remaining excited about the possibilities of paper today. She emphasizes this love by dedicating herself to using slow processes of book and paper making and manipulation, as well as living her life as a digital nonconformist. She’s just getting started to chart her course post-grad with plans to ditch her phone entirely, grow a tree in her apartment, use every piece of paper she has, and live at peace. Slowly.”