Peyton's connection to Prince spans decades: he exhibited at Prince's Glam Slam nightclub in downtown Minneapolis in the 1990s and worked as a scenic artist at Paisley Park as he was starting out in his career. His Royal Badness was made to hang in Glam Slam as part of his solo exhibition in 1993. Peyton worked for days on it, a labor of love, no sleep and drove it still wet in a truck with the rest of his work from Chicago. He was excited for Prince to see his new work.
Promptly after Prince saw it, he asked that it be taken down. He was told Prince wasn't into the afro look at this time. Peyton was crushed. He took some time to recover, and after more disappointments, he moved on from Prince.
Decades passed. Weeks after Prince's death, Peyton staged an anonymous overnight intervention, laying 24-carat gold leaf on Prince's First Avenue star, transforming it from silver to gold. To people all around the world this appeared like a mystical alchemy. It remains to this day — a quiet and powerful act of devotion in the city's long farewell to Prince.
