Behind the Box Babes Painting Series - reimagined for wear
- Alta Koer
- Mar 2
- 10 min read
I've been so excited to create the Box Babes apparel and tote line, and I'm elated to finally share it with you! If you've been with me a while, some of the work will look familiar. This has been years in the making.
Like the nature of the Box Babes series, the new line of products experiments with elements of design such as color, line, contrast, and form. A fusion between traditional and contemporary art media, these digital oil hybrids bridge a connection between what art once was and what it now can be. This is something I have toiled with for many years, choosing to be an oil painter in a digital world is a test of creativity, resourcefulness, and diligence in addition to skill. It gets my blood pumping to face the challenge. Academic art brains are trained to observe the world differently, solve problems creatively, and think inventively, traits conducive to the success of an artist. The t-shirts, hoodies, and totes in the collection are simultaneously a product of and a rejection of art academia.
THE BEGINING OF THE BABES
Fresh out of university when I first began these, I felt the accomplishment, but it was lightly sprinkled with a sense of loss. Certainly, anyone who has left school can understand, moving from a varied and busy schedule to the droning clockwork of working life is an adjustment. Disillusionment sat on the couch with me in my "free" time. The free time I thought was going to be devoted to my art became time to cook, eat, do laundry, see friends, learn to drive, apply for jobs, grocery shop, sleep, and relax. Yes, you read that right, I learned to drive after university what can I say, I grew up in a very walkable city. I missed grabbing a water bottle and a snack to stroll the few blocks to my studio space. There I built canvases to paint on the walls, my well used brushes mixed with my fresh new paints, the mess was never too messy, and the hours passed like minutes.
Daisy was the first, her birth happened to be recorded when I was streaming on Twitch TV. She was born in a "Chat Decides What I Paint" over two years ago and very unexpectedly started this journey! The process of painting her flowed naturally, having always gravitated towards portrait painting it was freeing to doodle without a due date or an upcoming critique. I felt more creative than I had in months.
After graduation I made do with the space I had, my canvases shrunk, I set up and took down my easel with every session, and I began to bring my studio to the internet. I always stockpile paints, supplies, and ideas so streaming was a great way to consistently paint, and the environment was welcoming enough for me to experiment. Once I started the Box Babes I couldn't seem to stop, I was cranking them out one after the other, each more refined than the last. At DC's quarterly Pancakes and Booze art show the first sixteen babes made their debut.
My biggest surprise at the art show was selling the Babe I thought would be difficult to first. Two women casually meander up the aisle. As they passed my booth, I saw one of their eyes get wide as she pointed up in my corner, "Can I see that one?" The words jumped from her with such urgency. I sprang into action and reached for pretty, purple Chrys, one of my personal favorites. "Oh, no, I meant the blue one", she kindly corrected.
Trish had icy, blue skin and big, inflamed red eyes from hours of crying, tears actively streamed down her face. Sparse, spikey green bangs stuck to her shiny forehead and her hair curled around to poke her rosy cheeks. One eyebrow was raised giving her a sense of confusion and the corners of her lips drooped into a deep pout.
The eruption of questions in my head must have cracked my poker face because she quickly offered to fill in the gaps. "A friend and I have a running contest to get each other the weirdest art we can find" she explained, pausing in the realization of how it may sound to the artist. I broke into a grin; I'd never thought of my paintings as making a good gag gift, but I wasn't opposed to it. Despite her appearance, Trish could actually be a happy reminder of a friend, apparently in a home with more weird artworks like her. It was better that I'd imagined.
PURPOSE AND PLANS
They were a grand slam. So much so, that ideas for them flowed in: a Box Babes world, an animated series, a collectible deck of cards. I began to think bigger about them and what they could be. Clothes were my original segue into the art world, so it felt like coming full circle to make wearable art from these paintings. It is always a statement to wear an art piece but even more so when the artist is lesser known and alive. These designs are bold, thoughtful, and fun. For example, in my design of Ki I subtly included my brand mixed in with the spots. Though I have designs that are quieter, through the journey the Babes have brought me on I’ve learned it’s ok to be the weird art girl, that’s how your tribe finds you.
The Box Babes themselves are vibrant, emotional girls. I grew up watching Bratz, and looking back on the Babes, I think they still influence my idea of stylized faces. If you are a Bratz fan you’ll see it, but I wear that influence proudly, they were very expressive and unapologetically themselves. There are some Babes who explore expressing mixed or conflicting emotions too. Koerina is one of my favorite examples, holding her lips in a tight slight smile, her eyes squint from the push of her cheeks and she successfully keeps her giggle to herself. However, a beautiful thing about art is that the viewer can give it their own meaning and see different things in each girl.
In my paintings, eyes tend to be larger, even outside of the Babes. That is a natural phenomenon that happens because they are what you look at the most on a face. The size is a reflection of how much attention you give it. There’s a good life lesson in there. That is also why the sides of the face shrink in an artist's early portraits. I've adopted it as part of my style. Working on self-portraits as of late, the models haven't complained thankfully. Ever since I would doodle faces as a child, people would always tell me that my drawings looked like me. It would frustrate me in my younger years, but I leaned into it as I got older with more intentional self-portraiture, it's a good tool to practice without outside expectation. However, I was surprised to hear it again with the box babes. Though they all have a similar composition I varied the features, seems every artist puts a little bit of themselves into their works.
FROM PAINT TO PRODUCT
When reimagining the Box Babes painting series for wear, I let their characteristics determine the design. It could be a play on their name, the emotion they show, or just an aesthetic choice. Sun has a sun design, Puncci has a slick, inky design, and Cinnalia disintegrates in all directions. I wanted Cinnalia to be reminiscent of warm cinnamon. Her freckles, her skin tone, her name, her design, which I’ve dubbed "antigravity splatter" all follow this. Aesthetic pleasure should not be discounted here, but there are so many ways to interpret the face and its relationship to emotion that people can see meanings I couldn't. Each girl brings her own traits, and it guides my further design of them.
It was therapeutic to make them, going through a speed bump with my art when I started the series, it was cathartic to do whatever I wanted especially after being in an academic setting for so long. From an arts high school into art study at university put 8 years of training under my belt. Thankfully I always went to art schools where individuality was embraced for the most part, and everyone could develop their own style. Regardless, I aimed to consider the source and not to let talk bother me too much, even with critique, but it can be challenging. I definitely would not have gotten as far with the box babes in an academic setting.
They don’t examine just one theme or experiment. In fact, I intentionally want them to be diverse and show all the fragmented facets of emotion and color relationships. There are times where you can feel so alone in an experience or a feeling. Knowing there are other people out there, who are feeling the same way as you, possibly about the same things, is healing in a way. There is comfort and safety in that, community. Then there are times you feel on top of the world, like everything is going your way. I explore both sides of the coin and everything in between with them as well as the fact that two identical faces in different colors will create different responses. They are an unspoken language, like emotions and body language some can understand while others may never notice.
When designing the collection, I knew I wanted the whole Babe in it, and I wanted them to retain their shape. The trouble with that was figuring out how to do all their different designs in a way that kept them square but also broke out of it in a tailored way. For some, it was the hair for others it was the skin, but never both, in order to keep the integrity of the shape, it’s a big part of their identity. Sun tempted me thoroughly; it is so often depicted at a circle that it took me weeks of figuring out how to make her round before I could recognize that block and let it go.
The tote bags are canvas, and the print is in the fibers, durable and apt to the painting's original nature. Designs are continuous rather than front and back for better harmony. You can get the handles in black, red, or yellow for any design. Personally, I like to get one that matches or blends with the colors already present in the bag, but it also offers the chance to contrast if you prefer. Totes come in two sizes, 15"x15" and 20"x16", plus the larger bags have an inside pocket for keys, phone, ID, ect. The back of the tote and the pocket bear the Alta Koer Art Production logo, AK in the gold frame. Shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies also have the framed AK on the back. It is at the very top for shirts and sweatshirts but below the hood on hoodies. All of the garments come in multiple colors and sizes range from extra small to three XL. They are similar to past designs in the format but also vary greatly.
When I first began experimenting with art on clothes my younger brother, an avid t-shirt wearer, gave me the note, "It looks like you put a painting on a T-shirt". At first, I didn't understand the issue, I had seen many other artists do the same and I owned some shirts like that myself, but the design element was missing, and I grew from that critique. Sometimes, those comments that repeat in your head are actually guiding you to improve.
Even during the actual digital drawing process of the products, I could hear a professor telling me not to mix painting and digital media, “If you want to be a painter then paint”. It is a logical argument, but for my purposes it was a lot easier to feel free and make mistakes digitally where I can edit just one layer or hit undo to plan a painting. Besides, art school teaches you everything from drawing to painting, video, sculpture, printmaking, and I’m probably missing some still. So, it is good to diversify and keep up multiple skills. It is built that way to help young artists build a knowledge base.
Each media feeds into each other in its own way, for example if you are to do a video art project and then do a sound art project or even an installation you would think about the music you play and the visuals you have in a different way because you have studied how people listen or notice. Molding a bust sculpture, you gain a palpable understanding of how features relate to each other, how light falls on the facial planes, and how to capture the delicate nature of something as light as a strand of hair with material as dense as stone. These skills are transferrable.
There’s a connection between painting and drawing too. In high school, the head of the art department would always say, “if you can draw you can paint” and I didn’t really get it at first. There was a learning curve, but eventually I was able to adapt my skill set. Unfortunately, we used acrylic paints, which would dry way too fast for my liking. It did make me into a very practiced color mixer at least. Working in oils at university was an epiphany, they take weeks to dry, so I would work "wet on wet" or allá prima which is the process I prefer to use. The colors blend beautifully and develop an overall tone that feels impossible to attain with acrylics even when glazing with a thin layer of paint. Looking back over my art career, each step really built upon the last. It can be difficulty to see at the time but in hindsight the path connects.
This has been an interesting journey. It’s nice to remember how painting felt before it was work or before it was school, it’s nice to just play and that’s truly the heart of the Box Babes. There are some new Babes in progress as well, so more are on the way. This isn't as short a read as I usually post but I hope you enjoy the insight as much as I enjoyed the process. Everything is available on my website including some original girls like Puncci and Cinnalia who are featured in the new line. Subscribe to my newsletter for updates on blogs, new designs, and any new content. Follow on Instagram and Youtube for updates and sneak peeks there too. Thank you for being a supporter of my small business. It means so much that people are in my corner, life has been so busy lately, but when is it not? I just want you to know you are appreciated, thank you for reading!
Also, before you go, please let me know which babes you’d like to see designed next!
who’s next?
0%fiera
0%precious
0%trish
0%goldie
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