Artist and designer Bo McCall has made his mark on the art world one button at a time.

Special correspondent Jared Bowen of G. Boughin,

takes us through the first ever retrospective covering his near 40 year career.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Going all the way back to his childhood, artist and designer Bo McCall has been besotted with buttons.

My mom had a Maxwell House jar of buttons in the basement, full of buttons.

So I always tell people, it was almost like in the

Bats in the basement full of buttons. So I always tell people it was almost like me in the jar

had dialogue.

Whatever the jar said it resonated deeply.

Buttons have fastened their holdover McCall as his medium of choice.

As we find at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, he's crafted vests, dresses, and shoes, jewelry, collage, and a bathtub.

So most of the things that I learn, I learn home in our apartment in public housing.

Most of the crafts I learned that I learned. home in our apartment in public housing.

Most of the crafts I learned at day camp,

after school programs, and three sewing stitches

from my mom that I still use today. So I like to call it

homegrown. McCall grew up in Philadelphia to parents with an innate sense of

fashion and design, often assembled from thrift stores, rummage sales, even the trash.

It was upcycling before upcycling was a thing, he says, which was the impetus for him to see a

creative bounty in buttons.

The button for me is precious.

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