Pretty Unmistakable: Prince and The Beautiful Ones

Bring to Life, The vision

The Beautiful Ones brings together Prince’s unfinished memoir, personal photographs, scrapbook material, and his handwritten treatment for Purple Rain. Editor and collaborator Dan Piepenbring introduces the project and provides context. It is not a completed, cradle-to-grave autobiography: its four-part structure follows Prince’s childhood, early musical development, and artistic self-creation.

An unfinished memoir. A creative archive. A little inspiration for becoming someone only you could be.

Prince has been a favorite of mine for years. I once created a calligraphy piece using his lyrics , so the connection between music and visual art is personal to me.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN • NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD.

For this feature, I’m approaching it as a creative invitation: to think about the photographs, handwriting, experiments, and decisions that become part of someone’s story.

The Pretty Angle

AngleWhat we’re exploringPretty UnmistakableWhat it means to develop a creative identity of your ownPretty Before the ApplauseThe work you make before anyone is paying attentionPretty in ProgressWhy your unfinished ideas might be worth keeping

The Pretty Perspective

There is something compelling about encountering the materials behind a public image.

The photographs, notes, drawings, and other early creative material in The Beautiful Ones offer a way to consider process alongside presentation. The book includes a scrapbook associated with the making of Prince’s debut album, For You.

That gives me a question worth sitting with:

What are we making now that might one day help explain how we became ourselves?

As an artist, photographer, retoucher, and someone who has choreographed dances, routines, and poses, I’m interested in the decisions behind an image. The gesture. The framing. The mood. What gets emphasized, and what gets left out.

That is the lens I want to bring to this book: not simply admiring a recognizable creative identity, but wondering about the choices and experiments that helped shape it.

How It Might Make You Feel

The combination of unfinished writing and personal material might leave you curious, inspired, or a little wistful.

You might also find yourself thinking about your own beginnings: the early photograph you almost deleted, the notebook you stopped using, or the piece of artwork you thought wasn’t good enough to keep.

Those are possibilities, not a promise. Your response may be entirely different.

A Pretty Thought

“You don’t have to be finished becoming yourself to make something worth keeping.”

An original Pretty Perspective thought, not a quotation from Prince or the book.

Pretty Petty Point of View

“A mood board is lovely. At some point, your own work needs to be on it.”

Inspiration is welcome. So is giving your own ideas a little space.

A Pretty Little Something to Try

Make Your “Before the Applause” Page

Give yourself ten minutes. Find:

1. One early photograph or piece of artwork.

2. One recent creation.

3. Three words that feel true to both.

4. One sentence beginning: “Even then, I was drawn to…”

Put them together on a page, in a notebook, or in a digital collage.

It doesn’t need to become a post, a product, or a personal-brand announcement. You can simply keep it.

A Prompt to Sit With

What do your unfinished creations reveal about your taste that your polished work doesn’t?

Food for Thought: Your Own Visual Language

Try this little creative recipe:

• One color you keep returning to.

• One gesture or pose you love.

• One texture that catches your attention.

• One influence you’re happy to acknowledge.

• One choice that feels distinctly yours.

Combine them in a photograph, sketch, collage, or written scene.

The goal isn’t to prove that you’re original. It’s to notice what you choose when you give yourself room to choose.

Put This On

My soundtrack pairing for this feature is, of course: “The Beautiful Ones” by Prince.

Listen before or after spending time with the book. Then notice what mood the music brings to the photographs, pages, or your own creative practice.

This is my editorial pairing, not an official soundtrack for the book.

Is This Your Kind of Pretty?

This may be worth exploring if you’re interested in Prince, personal creative archives, or the relationship between an artist’s beginnings and public identity.

If you want a complete, conventional life story, remember that this is an unfinished memoir expanded with archival material, not that kind of biography.

For this Pretty Perspective, the question to carry away is simple:

What part of your creative life deserves to be kept, even before you know what it will become?...