Beau McCall’s beautiful collages celebrate the Black LGBTQ community’s lost

Rewind: Memories on Repeat sees McCall’s kaleidoscopic collages of archive photography and his famous button work pay homage to those lost to AIDS, anti-trans violence, drugs, and time

12July 2021

“Philadelphia is a conservative, and I have never really been conservative because I’m a visual person,” says African American artist and Philly native Beau McCall. Known as “The Button Man” for his wearable art that transforms the universal fastener into sparkling gems that address issues of race, economics, social justice, and pop culture, McCall’s aesthetic sensibilities placed him in a league all his own from a young age.

Growing up, McCall’s sense of style evolved in tandem with his musical tastes – from hippie to punk to funk with effortless grace. Determined to forge his own identity, he used music and fashion to express himself, donning platforms, skinny pants, and midriff tops, with dreams of dressing like a rock star.

“If I went out shopping and saw something I couldn’t afford, I would go home and try to make something similar like the pants that FloJo used to wear with one leg,” he recalls. “I did that in seventh grade. I walked through the neighbourhood a couple of times and they thought I was crazy. I was in an individual. I never wanted to play follow the leader. I just wanted to have my own identity.”

After coming our in his teens, McCall found what would become his chosen family, a group of likeminded folks who shared his penchant for glamour and artistry – Joey, Tony, Trey, Tracy, James, Sifuddin, Moi Renee, Charles, Bianca, and Antoine AKA Dee Dee Somemore. “We all lived in the same neighbourhood, bumped into each other casually, and gravitated to each other, knowing we were coming to terms with our sexuality,” he says. “When I started hanging with my gay friends, it was Diana Ross, Donna Summer, all the disco queens – so my visuals changed again and I started dabbling in drag. I was still expressing myself artistically.”

McCall teamed up with his closest friends Tracy and Antoine to start a singing group, the Strange Beauties. “We were heavily influenced by punk rock and used to listen to Wendy O. Williams, Debbie Harry, and the B-52s on WKDU, a college radio station. We started to frequent the Hot Club, a punk club, and I saw a poster for a Plasmatic concert so we went, dressed in our best punk gear to check out the band. Wendy had pasties on her breasts, one of the guys was dressed in a maid’s outfit, and they had a coffin on the stage. It was bizarre and we absolutely loved it,” McCall says.

Pin It — Beau McCall and Tracy Monroe, Blondes

“From there we were inspired to create out own music. We would be in drag sometimes, androgynous other times, and sometimes very masculine but we would have our heels on. We would just go from one extreme to the next extreme.”

Invariably, Philadelphia’s conservatism became too limiting. “I decided to move to New York because I heard that you have a hard time getting people’s heads to turn here because there are so many different types of people,” McCall says. After moving to Harlem, McCall found his groove, making his critically acclaimed debut of wearable art at the Black Fashion Museum show during Harlem Week. He quickly became a force on the scene, presenting at their shows consecutively for the next decade.

Now McCall brings his distinctive style to something deeply close to his heart in the new book, Rewind: Memories on Repeat (SHINE Portrait Studio Press). Here McCall presents a series of collages that bring together archival images with his button work to pay homage to friends and loved ones who have since passed on. “The day before we started working on the book, Tracy died,” McCall says, the pain of loss resurfacing in his voice. “I don’t know how many breakdowns I’ve had already and I don’t know how many more I’m going to have but they mean so much to me. They are a part of me still here breathing and carrying on their legacy.”

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THE STRANGE BEAUTIES

“Our circle was very small and it was very tight. The Strange Beauties were our form of a house, presented as a punk group. Antoine is on the left, I am on the right, and Tracy is in the middle. We went to do a photo shoot and had our outfits planned in advance. Then Tracy came out of the dressing room in this cat suit. Antoine and I looked at each other like, ‘Where did this come from?!’ The bitch wanted to upstage us. We were furious. It made us look like we were the background singers!

“Tracy was the one who really wanted to sing She didn‘t have the best voice. Antoine had the best voice. I need a direction so I could follow whoever was doing the lead. We wrote all our songs about fashion, empowerment, and the nightlife – everything that was going on at the time. We wrote a few songs together but I wrote the bulk of it, and we had a good time doing it.

“My cousin and some of his friends they were musicians so we got them to be our backing band. We rented a studio space and rehearsed like two or three times a week. We were just more or less trying to get these songs as tight as possible. We got a chance to perform one time. We did this song calling out our lovers’ names in the lyrics and pointed out to the audience. The guys were moving out the way because it was a straight audience. It was so funny.”

02 / 08

BEAU MCCALL AND TRACY MONROE

“Oh that's me looking extra! I’m in the front with the stripes on right and Tracy is in the back. We were out on the strip this particular night, in front of the club sitting on somebody’s parked truck. I used to say that Tracy and I were picture crazy and I’m glad we were, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the ammunition to make this project.

“The wigs are by Andre Douglas, a Black designer who made really natural looking wigs. This one was called ‘Fantasy’ – it was rock star hair like Tina Turner in the Private Dancer era. We lived and died by that wig. I had several of them. And we loved the fishnet stockings. We’d be walking down the street, turn around, and ask some random guy, ‘Excuse me? Are my seams straight?’”

03 / 08

TONY

“I met Tony through Tracy; they were friends before I moved into the neighbourhood. Tony was very popular and everybody liked him. He was very humourous, had all the latest gossip, and could make a mean drink. Tony was working in the adult bookstore and got Tracy, Joey and I jobs at the store. He would have the first shift, someone would have the second shift and then I would have the midnight shift. We would throw stuff underneath the counter like dildos, vibrators, candy panties, and other gadgets, then alter each other that such and such was under the counter so we could sell it and pock they money.

“Tony was like a brother to me and I don’t claim other individuals outside of my biological brothers. I got a chance to get to know his mother. She was a gorgeous Black woman: beautiful hair and smile, soft-spoken, very sweet spirit. She made me feel comfortable. When you were in her home, you felt wanted. She embraced us all.”

04 / 08

TREY

“Trey was a hoot. He’s a little bit high in this picture, a big smile, and his voice sounded like a combination of Nick Ashford and Sylvester. He had one of those gospel type voices. We would be walking down the street, and he would just start screaming, hollering and hitting notes.

“At that point in time, neither of use had been in relationships so he created this club called ‘I Hate Men International’ and we were the only members. We used to talk to our friends because they were in abusive relationships, doing everything for the sake of saying they had a man in their life. Maybe a year or so later, I got into a relationship and I got expelled from the club. Trey said I was a traitor and revoked my membership! The sad part about the story is he so wanted to be in a committed relationship and never got that because he didn’t trust anybody.

“We used to go to psychic readers and he used to always say that I was mystical because I always connected with some of the things that they would say to me. We went to this one reader who told everyone how long they were going to live. When it was his turn, she didn’t tell him. He was really upset. She told me but I never repeated it and that stuck with him. He died four years later. It was heart-shattering.”

05 / 08

JOEY AKA ERICKA WORLD

“I always pride myself on having the best legs in town. Trey told me, ‘It's this new queen that I saw downtown who has got a better pair of legs.’ So one night I came out and met Joey. We sized each other up. He did have a gorgeous pair legs but they didn't compete with mine and we became friends.

“Joey was a Dionne Warwick fanatic. When we went to his apartment, you couldn’t play any other music; you got a pass to play Whitney Houston because they were related. Joey was just obsessed with her! When we went to the club, there was a certain way that Dionne Warwick held her microphone and he would hold his drinks like that, with three fingers up. We were at the bar one night and he said to me, ‘I’m class and sophistication,’ and I said, ‘No you’re more like trash and solicitation!’ He threw his drink but we laughed it off.”

06 / 08

GETTING READY

“These are photos from us getting ready to go out. Antoine didn’t spend a lot of time on his make-up and he would always complain about how long we took. He had very nice skin so he would just powder his face, draw in his eyes, put some lipstick on, and he was done. Tracy and I took maybe an hour to do make-up. Tracy was just beginning to put on her face; she had her nails done, her foundation and lashes on, but she hadn’t started colouring in her face. I have all my foundation on. I hadn’t draw a line my eyes yet.

“I was obsessed with that black eyeliner. I don’t know who introduced me to it, but I lost my mind with that big line under my eye. I looked like a combination of Grace Jones and Diana Ross. I studied the ‘Dos & Don’ts’ page of Essence magazine to become a master of putting on great eyes. I used to go into the bathroom at night when everyone in my house was asleep to practice. I’m a dark skinned person, and someone would always tell me, ‘You can’t wear this colour lipstick,’ so I learned the tricks of the trade so they couldn’t tell me anything.”

07 / 08

PHOTO BOOTH

“These photos were taken back during the time when you went to the photo booth at the arcade. These are photos of Tracy and I, and also me alone. We had a ritual where we used to go to the arcade to take random pictures, and we would bring props to dress up the shoots. We would buy plastic raincoats that came in all colours and use them as a backdrop, then we would pin the cover of Interview magazine on top of it. Every time we went into town we’d stop by the arcade and take these candid photos before we went out. I can’t even remember where we were going.”

08 / 08

FAMILY MONTAGE

“This is a montage of everyone in the book: Antoine, Tony, Joey, Trey, Tracy, James, Sifuddin, Moi Renee, Charles, and Bianca. James was very regal, sophisticated, knowledgeable, and concerned about politics. He was a human teddy bear, just a very gentle spirit. He’s somebody I miss a lot. Bianca was tall and beautiful. She was murdered during a lover’s quarrel. She just got in with the wrong people and died very young, somewhere in her early 20s.

“Charles was like my baby brother. Then he was a singer. He had a very jazzy, smoky type of voice with a lot of range. He was loaded with talent, and someone I could have seen doing amazing things. After I moved out of my mom’s house, Charles and I wet walking down the street and for stopped by police on some racial profiling. Some woman had her pocket book snatched and they said we ‘fit the description.’ When the cops put me in the police car, and I had a bag of weed on me so I shoved it into a pair of gloves, put it in my bag, and gave the bag to Charles so they wouldn’t find it on me.

“At this point in my life I don’t have anything to hide. These were lived experiences and I don’t regret anything that I’ve done with any of these people. It was a part of my journey. You’re only young for a short time and if you miss it you can’t recapture it. All the things that I’ve done, I enjoyed them and I wasn’t going wait until I turned 50 to get started.”

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