Those of you who read this column carefully know that I’ve worn a number of hats over the years — actor, carriage driver, filmmaker, face painter, mascot, banker, animal wrangler, singer, karaoke host and columnist, to name a few.
This week, as I celebrate my birthday, I’m adding another line on the résumé — artist. As one of the people chosen by art curator Soleo to participate in “Art Enology” at Vivant Gallery, I will be on hand tonight during the First Friday Arts Crawl in Old City to show off my first effort at fine art.
I may be a newbie, but I’m exhibiting with a number of accomplished artists. One of the talented artists, button specialist Beau McCall, took time off to tell me about his history and journey from fashion designer to the art world.
PGN: Tell me a little about Beau. BM: I’m from South Philadelphia and was raised in the Martin Luther King Plaza projects over at 12th and Fitzwater. They no longer exist.
PGN: A good memory from that time? BM: The projects have a really bad stigma now but when we moved in, it was a great place to live. It was all two-parent families and we were like one big family in the building. Well, four buildings really. We had a lot of fun. We had three boys in our family and our neighbors had three daughters so we all got along great. There was a recreation center where I learned a lot of my crafts and where we got exposed to a lot of different things. We took trips to museums and galleries, botanical gardens, all types of places. That was at a very early age so it made a big impression on me. That was when the projects were new. Unfortunately, as time moved on, they changed from what they were intended to be. But I have a lot of good memories of growing up in the projects.
PGN: Where do you fall in the family? BM: I’m the oldest of five: two sisters and two brothers.
PGN: Who was the funny one? BM: We were all funny; it’s in the blood.
PGN: Tell me about the parents. BM: They’re quiet people and they both loved music, jazz actually. So the house was always filled with a lot of great jazz, Carmen McRae, Nat King Cole, etc. My mother used to complain that you couldn’t understand what they were saying in most pop songs. [Laughs.] If I wanted to hear popular or current music, I had to go to a neighbor’s house where they had teenagers. But it stayed with me. Now, when I’m working and need inspiration, when all else fails, I’ll put on some jazz.
PGN: Who’s your favorite artist from that era? BM: Jon Hendricks. He’s considered one of the best scat singers in the world. I love that man! I had a chance to meet him last summer and I was in awe. There’s just something about his vocal tones and his skills as a lyricist that I love. I remember listening to him and other scat singers and just being fascinated by how fast they could sing! As a kid, I had no idea what they were doing, I just thought they were making sounds but, as I got older, I realized they were emulating instruments.
PGN: Do you play any instruments? BM: No, no. I don’t have any kind of rhythm at all.
PGN: So you’re the exception that makes us look bad? BM: I blame my parents! They never danced in the house, maybe once a year at Christmas when my mom would say to my dad, “Oh come on, let’s dance for the kids.” They didn’t dance to music often; they preferred to really listen to it.
PGN: And what did the parents do? BM: My mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad worked in a pencil factory. We always had these unique pencils he’d bring home for us.
PGN: I guess you couldn’t use not having something to write with as an excuse for getting out of homework? BM: Oh no. We always had something to write with. The best were the pencils with our names on them, they made us feel like big shots at school.
PGN: What were you like as a kid? BM: I was very shy, very introverted and quiet. My release came from creating things. I was always in a room by myself drawing or doing macramé and other art projects.
PGN: Tell me the sandal story. BM: [Laughs.] OK. When I was 9 years old, my mom had a pair of T-strapped sandals and I wanted them. She told me I couldn’t have them because they were girl sandals. Back then, the telephone company would come to your house to do work and would leave all these colorful wires behind. In our family, every year we would each get a new pair of sneakers, so that year I took my Keds sneakers, cut off the tops and wove the telephone wires to make straps just like on my mother’s sandals. I told my mother, these are boy sandals because a boy made them. She was amazed. It was my first wearable art!
PGN: Outside of art, what was a favorite class? BM: I’m a Pisces and we’re very creative people. We have a hard time with normal stuff so if I wasn’t in art class, I spent most classes looking out the window daydreaming. My body was in class, but my mind was always somewhere else. It wasn’t until I got to art class that I’d come awake again. My teacher, Miss Jones, always let me work at my own pace. The class would be doing some pen-and-pencil project and I’d be doing big crafty projects. One day she asked me what I wanted to do with my life and I told her I wanted to work with my hands, creating things. So after school she took me to a surplus store that used to be where the South Street Bridge is now and let me get all the supplies I wanted. It was amazing. Outside of my mom, she was the one who really had confidence in what I could do and what I was trying to say.
PGN: That’s fantastic! BM: Yeah, and I ended up in her class because I was taking a business course. The only reason I took it was because they guaranteed you a job. I guess my business skills weren’t great because they placed me as a stock boy at this little store down at Second and Chestnut. I had a hard time working there because the guy I was assigned to work for had a horrible mouth. Growing up, my parents never used any profanities, so to have some man I didn’t know cursing at me upset me. It was a little church store, and I was supposed to be his assistant. He would cuss me out for no good reason and I would cringe every time he opened his mouth. I told my mom and I figured she’d let me quit, but no. I don’t know what she did, but she called the guy and, from that day on, everything changed. No more cuss words. So back to the art teacher. When I dropped the business class, she let me take her class and from there I gained even more confidence. She was one of those teachers that everyone respected. I still do. I recently talked to her for the first time in 30 years! And she was still supportive and encouraging.
PGN: How nice! Speaking of supportive, I read that your mom and your aunt go to junk stores and flea markets to collect buttons for you. BM: Ha! She’s been doing that for years. People thought she was strange because she’d see something in the trash and come home and say to me and my brothers, “I need you to go to Pine Street between 12th and 13th, down the little alley there, Camac Street, and get the chair from the garbage bin.” We would look at her like she was crazy: “Are you nuts? Our friends are going to see us digging in the trash and make fun!” She didn’t care. We’d bring it back and she’d clean it up and paint it and it was beautiful. You’d never know it had been garbage. So when we were kids, she and my aunt would go into all these little thrift shops and to flea markets and we’d have to go with her. We’d stay outside because we were too cool to be seen in a thrift store but, one day, it was cold outside so I went in. I started looking around and I was hooked. She still does it today and I get excited when she brings me a bag of buttons.
PGN: You should get her on that show, “Flea Market Flip.” What’s a chore you love that most people hate? BM: I love to iron. It actually helped launch my career, because we used to iron in the basement of the building. There was a jar of buttons on a shelf that used to just sit there in the laundry room and it was like the jar was talking to me, saying, “Open me up …” So I’d open it, play with the buttons and put it back. One day, I was down there with a sweater and got the idea to embellish the sweater with all the buttons. I had no idea what I was doing but, for some reason, wanted to cover the sweater with buttons. I put so many on that the sweater stretched from the weight of it and sagged down to my knees! And that’s how I got started. I still have that sweater.
PGN: What was the first piece you sold? BM: It started with a fashion show at the state building that I saw during Harlem Week in New York. It’s kind of like Unity Day here on the Parkway, but it runs on 125th Street and goes from river to river. A friend of mine took me and I said, “Next year, I’m going to be in that fashion show.” He laughed, but he underestimated my spirit. I made about six jackets and took them to an open call for the fashion show. They loved them and I was featured in the show for the next 10 years.
PGN: That’s amazing. BM: Yeah, I met so many people out of that — models, other designers and all sorts of creative people. It really got the ball rolling for me.
PGN: And roll it did! I understand you were featured in Women’s Wear Daily and Essence magazine and have been featured on PBS. You’ve also given fashion advice for Rolling Out magazine, MadameNoire.com and AtlantaPost.com. BM: Yeah, the Women’s Wear Daily was a big deal. It’s the fashion-industry bible. When I first started, I was a little intimidated because the other designers around me were making things from scratch and they’d tease me and say, “Beau, you’re just sewing buttons on things.” What they didn’t realize was that there was/is a whole art to what I do, there’s a technique and artistry applied. Everything is mapped out with patterns and it’s all color-coded. There’s a lot involved beyond sewing on buttons and WWD really validated me. It was an honor.
PGN: And now you’re doing visual art? BM: Yes, after a while I left the fashion world. It became really cutthroat and I decided to take a breather for a few months. That turned into years until I met my partner Souleo. He’s really driven me and just lit the creative spark in me again.
PGN: How did you meet? BM: We met through mutual friends. As soon as I saw him, he flashed that beautiful smile and I thought, Oh my gosh! We spent the whole time talking. Then we ended up going out to dinner, and that entire first day we never left each other’s sight. It’s been three years but it’s felt like we’ve known each other forever.
PGN: I noticed he was wearing one of your pieces when I went to the gallery. BM: Yes, he loves my work, so I’ll custom-make a lot of stuff for him. It’s fun, he gets all excited when he sees me working on something. I made him a custom fanny pack recently by taking old jeans and cutting the legs off and making them into a little pack. [Smiles.] He looks good in all my stuff … No, he looks great!
PGN: How long is the process? BM: Oh, for one jacket it could take several months and I might use up to 1,500 buttons.
PGN: Since you do fashion advice, give me three tips. BM: The color this summer is blue. Always have scarves around, they’re very practical — you can wrap one on your head, you can use it around your neck, you can wear it as a belt, a bracelet, tie it on your bag for a pop of color, there’s a lot you can do with it. And always make sure you have one good pair of leather-bottomed shoes.
PGN: As far as your visual art goes, I noticed some political themes. BM: Well, for my first forays into visual art I wanted to create something that had a message, so I did a piece called “Until We’re Free” based on W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness. There were two other pieces that I did to coordinate with it, one to honor Dr. King with glow-in-the-dark thread transposing the American flag over the color pattern of the Pan-African flag on four panels of crowns, and an audio piece called “The King’s Speeches” that goes with it.
PGN: Switching topics, favorite commercial right now? BM: I just saw an Evian commercial where these adults are looking in a store window and seeing themselves as babies and whatever they do, the baby does. So they all start dancing around. It’s real cute.
PGN: What’s the feature you get the most compliments on? BM: Probably my eyes.
PGN: Tell me a story about a family member. BM: Both of my parents lost their mothers when they were young, but my grandfather was so … much … fun! He had all sorts of crazy sayings. He’d joke, “Boy, you ain’t but what the elephant left at the fair!” We’d crack up and it wasn’t ’til I was an adult that I realized he was calling us elephant dung! Basically saying, “You ain’t shit,” in a nice way. He was really fun and all of us got a lot of love from him. He’s somebody I miss. He had a little two-seater sports car and I remember every summer he’d take us to Atlantic City. There would be, like, 10 of us in that little Camaro! But we always had a good time.
PGN: I miss those days before safety regulations! I remember I’d always get my mother to let us ride on the roof of the station wagon, hanging on to the luggage racks on short runs to the store or a neighbor’s house. BM: [Laughs.] Those were the days …
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