JEWEL WILL STILL SAVE YOUR SOUL

Artifice is out, mental health is in, and Jewel's been ready for this moment her entire life.

- Melissa Giannini

At age 15, Jewel moved out of her turbulent home in rural Alaska and hitchhiked several hundred miles to attend a powwow. Sitting in a large circle, she froze when a talking stick was passed to her. Later, she was taken aside by two "uncles," who told her the future of her life would depend upon learning to speak from her heart. It was there that she also heard the story of the raven, which she recites to me from memory.

"There was a gathering every full moon of all the creatures of every kind," she says. "One day, the two-leggeds [humans] didn't show up, so Great Spirit sent out the raven, which was then a beautiful white bird, to look for them. The raven flew for days and found the two-leggeds wandering lost on the edges of the wilderness. The raven called to them, but they could no longer understand the language, and the raven turned black with grief. The raven flew back to the fire and said, "The two-leggeds have lost the language of knowing how to speak to all of us, to nature.'" 

Today, in a nondescript cinder block building behind a Food 4 Less shopping center in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles, a raven named Shadow is biting Jewel's index finger. She gracefully extends her hand so as not to drip blood onto the ivory folds of a borrowed gown, grimacing ever so slightly as a turntable spins her like a life-size music box dancer.

"Cut!" yells creative director Matthew Rolston, one of the multiplatinum recording artist's longtime collaborators, whom she's called upon to help her shoot a hologram of herself for The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel, opening on May 4 at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.