Singer Jewels Clark Makes Music While Advocating for Dallas Creatives

You’ve probably met Jewels Clark during a night out in Dallas. If you’re not at one of her concerts, creative workshops or artistic unveilings, you’ll likely catch the 28-year-old multihyphenate supporting her fellow creatives. The artist — who often goes by Creator Jewels — has many events in the pipeline for her creative community, but for the first time in her life, she is prioritizing her own first love, music.

We caught up with Jewels at her studio in Old East Dallas, just days after she premiered her new single, “No Body,” a song born from a dark time in her life. On the song, Jewels delivers raspy, sultry vocals over a hypnotic track, detailing feelings of loneliness.

In 2021, Jewels learned that she is bipolar, which she found out after having a rather unsettling hypomanic episode.

“It was the scariest thing in my life,” Jewels says, her voice shot after performing a set at the Beeman Hotel. “For two weeks, I was, like, walking around Highland Park, I would wear no shoes, my dog would be off the leash, and I thought I was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Let me just tell you, it's not fun. I do not wish that on anyone. But I know the depths of my own mind and darkness now, which is still terrifying, but at least it's cool."

The song had been sitting inside her mind for three years before she finally decided to release it, and it feels more timely than ever.

Jewels’ love for music began as a child. She often sang in the car with her mom to Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé.

“I think it was the only time she was emotionally available,” Jewels says jokingly. “Her and I just connected over music, and it always gave me this flair for the dramatic.”
Jewels attended Texas A&M University at Commerce, where she studied public relations and image management. She launched her blog, How to be Social, around 2017, when she graduated. Like her music, the blog was born during a trying time in Jewels’ life.

Shortly before graduating, Jewels got a DUI — a situation she has often spoken about through her YouTube channel.

“I was kind of just feeling like a failure, man,” she says. “I started listening to this podcast, and this woman was an influencer — and influencer was a relatively new thing at the time. She was saying, ‘Just do what you're good at.’ And like, I wasn't really a fashionista, I wasn't doing music as much as I was now; I wasn't a foodie, I wasn't really any of those things. But people always told me I was really good at being social.

“It was so funny to me, because [as a child] I would hide behind my mom’s legs in public. My mom would push me out in front of people and say, ‘God is not giving you a spirit of fear, but of love, and peace and sound mind.'”

Having pushed through those struggles — the hypomanic episode had yet to take place — Jewels kickstarted her mission to show other creatives they, too, can push through and find success amid personal struggles. Her first event under the How to be Social brand was called "Succeed at Any Age," a workshop designed to help creatives elevate and monetize their craft.

“It was a big deal,” Jewels says. “People from like 18 to 60 [years of age] showed up.”

From there, How to be Social grew into an arts coalition, comprising creators, musicians, photographers and writers. She also launched her own consulting firm and partnered with local venues to host album release parties, workshops, film screenings and other events.

Jewels started putting out her own music in 2020. It had always been on her bucket list to record an album, but she hit a bit of a snag as she was figuring out the equipment and recording software.

Fortunately, How to be Social had taken full swing, and during an event Jewels was hosting for an accelerator firm, she met Solomon Wolf, who represented a recording studio at the time.

“I had known Solomon, because he liked all my messages and all my little Instagram posts,” says Jewels. “So I met him, and I was like, ‘I know who you are.’ And one thing led to another. I told him I was trying to get into music. He's like, ‘Well, we produce, if you want to do a trade of business services,’ because I was doing consulting. So I started consulting for their studio, and I started making music with them.”

Through her creative community, Jewels has learned that it truly takes a village — not only to raise a child, but to uplift adults. She admits she almost experienced another hypomanic episode following a recent breakup, but she was able to get through it by leaning on loved ones.

“I just put together a group of people and I was like, ‘I think these people love me.’ I put them in all in a group chat and said, ‘I just went through a breakup. I could really use some friends right now,’ and I just really felt loved and received.” And that's what "No Body" is about — learning how to work on your own mind, your own body and how that affects how you treat others.”

Her newest single is part of an upcoming album called No, which Jewels says is about learning to establish stricter boundaries. The next single will be titled “No Better,” which Jewels says is about an “OnlyFans phase” she went through.

“It's a very sexy ‘take my power back, take my sexuality back,’ song,” says Jewels.

Between singles, Jewels is organizing events for her “socialites.” Throughout October, How to be Social will host a DVD movie night, with a screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on Oct. 13 at The Vault. Then, How to be Social will host The Murder: A Gathering of Prose at Ash Studios on Oct. 26, during which attendees will share scary stories, poetry and art.

Jewels plans to team up with singer Adieu Anais — who has also been open about her spirituality guiding her craft — to develop a workshop called The Science of Woo.

“These spiritual things that you're feeling and experiencing — there is a science to them,” says Jewels. “What [we] really want to do is I want to help people understand that they have more control over who they are and how to manage their emotions.”

Jewels has her future cut out for her, as she plans to enter politics by 35. She shares that her world travels — seeing how other countries’ political landscapes work — have influenced her goals.

“They don't view politics as a life or death conversation in other countries,” Jewels says. “They view it as a conversation where, ‘We’re moving the needle, we're progressing together.’ I get emotional about that, because that's all I've ever wanted to do in community. I just want to move the needle. I just want us to get better a little bit every day at a time.”