Question Reality with House of Miracles
Our perception of what a beverage can mean, the doors it can open, and the level of creativity that can be behind it has been turned on its head. Each handmade items is embellished with bold, screen-printed graphics— not a single piece in this line is like the other.
We sat down with co-founder Jason S. Wright to discuss the collection, the brand ethos, and the miraculous.
Miracle Seltzer stands for much more than a beverage. What are you trying to say, do, and represent with the brand?
Miracle Seltzer started as a way for us to look at a generic commodity as a vehicle for carrying our art and philosophy into places where those ideas weren’t normally easily accessible. The world is full of doom and gloom and it can be pretty overwhelming but I had found that if you shift your perspective to the good in the world, the Miraculous, then those things only proliferate. Miracle Seltzer, in its early iterations, acted as a collaborative sculpture that myself and B. Thom Stevenson created in order to carry this message further than than the clothes, books, and paintings we were known for. Keeping in mind artists like Cady Noland and Richard Prince who had used the beverage can as a medium and big inspirations to us, we wanted to push ourselves to make the beverage a thing that people could drink.
How does it transgress the product?
Miracle is so much more than a product, it’s a mindset or for lack of better words, a lifestyle. Its setting the intention each day to look for the Miraculous, A Miracle Every Day. When deciding what the product should be, we were inspired by the poet Wallace Stevens who said “Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.”, the idea being that if all the packaging and ephemera around the water referenced the Miraculous, then as people consumed the product and wore the garments, that they in turn would begin to adopt the mindset, delighting in more Miracles. That coupled with the fact that I drink a ton of seltzer, lead us to Miracle Seltzer.
What are the bridges MS draws between fashion, art, and community? How does this campaign represent that, and your ethos?
B. Thom and I have worked together for years as collaborators and we both have extensive backgrounds as freelance designers who also have fine art studio practices. With that, we have worked for so many different kinds of clients on such a range of projects, making so many friends along the way. We wanted to create Miracle Seltzer and the House of Miracles as a way to work with all of our friends on the projects we cared about while giving our community a platform to amplify their voices. We believe as artists and creatives we have the ability to build new worlds, to create the world we want to live in and that is never a solitary endeavor. Community is everything to Miracle and our community are all Miracles. Question Reality is our first proper collection as House of Miracles. B Thom and I took our time with it and really paid close attention to all the details of the collection creating garments that we were really proud of, pieces that we wanted to wear. All pieces start in our respective studios with that idea of building new worlds in mind. Question Reality is a reminder to question everything, if you are not satisfied with your current situation, sometimes a shift in perspective can create a whole new reality for you.
