Hammonds House Museum presents

Beau McCall’s Divas, Blues, and Memories

Beau McCall: Divas, Blues, and Memories draws from three distinct series that together celebrate music’s role as a source of inspiration, cathartic emotional solace, and marker of significant life experiences. 

Anchoring the exhibition are McCall’s music-themed collages. McCall created each one by hand using his personal archival photos and papers, along with images from his button-embellished artwork. Once completed, the works were scanned and printed on metal for luminosity. Divided into two categories, the collages pull from his Diva Worship and REWIND: MEMORIES ON REPEAT series. The former features portraits of both famous and underrepresented divas–of all gender identities–whose music inspired, empowered, and captivated McCall, particularly during his coming-of-age in the 1970s LGBTQ+ community. Throughout history and within various cultures, divas have been “worshipped” or admired for their talent, personality, and achievements, especially by marginalized communities who identify with the diva’s own struggles against systemic prejudice and discrimination. Thus, McCall’s collages laud these divas whose music and personas reflect the ability to challenge, and sometimes even triumph over, oppressive forces, and offer a space for escapism, reflection, and aspiration.

The REWIND collages spotlight music’s ability to forge bonds and serve as a “soundtrack” for our lives, conjuring memories. The collages feature some of McCall’s deceased friends from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, from Philadelphia to New York, during the LGBTQ+ rights movement, the height of disco music, and the AIDS crisis. Within these friendships, music was a galvanizing force, whether they attended concerts, partied at the disco, shared playlists, impersonated their favorite divas, or pursued their own musical dreams of stardom. Thus, McCall invites viewers to celebrate music as a uniting force and keeper of memories.

Finally, McCall presents his Blue series, which references the musical tradition of the blues. McCall highlights the genre’s viscerality with a tribute to Billie Holiday, whose vocal delivery conveyed the emotional essence of the blues. Plus, additional hand-sewn button-embellished artworks replete with varying shades of blue buttons in an abstract arrangement manifest the range of emotions–from sadness to joy–that are found within this musical genre.

Collectively, through the works in this exhibition, McCall explores the deeply personal and emotional ways in which music resonates within our souls and lives within our memories.