Lease on Life

Lease on Life serves as a critique on capitalist concepts of property ownership and the unjust power imbalance between landlords and tenants. The sterling silver ring depicts a figure crushed into the confines of their ill-fitting house, with a picket fence ring band that connects in the back through a hinged gate. The ring can be worn or displayed on a concrete ring stand with a small plot of astroturf that forms the backyard. The title is a play on the phrase "a new lease on life," which means to experience a second chance for success. The ironic use of this idiom does not apply to the figure in the house, however, but instead belongs to the unseen landlord, who ensures their own fortune by extorting tenants through unfair lease agreements. The house and picket fence are symbols for the American Dream, and function as arrows that refer to the escalating crisis of affordable housing and the upward flow of wealth away from the working class. The picket fence also reflects the ideologies of separation and mistrust that are built into the concept of private property, which work to inhibit class solidarity and community building. Opening the back gate represents an opportunity to break this cycle of extortion by collaborating with our community and redefining what it means to own property.

The central figure and house form were carved from wax and inspired by an oil painting that I had made the previous year. The wax was then cast in sterling silver at the Iowa City Fab Lab, where I then constructed the fence and gate ring band out of sterling silver wire. The images below show the creation of the ring in reverse, from finished piece back through to the original painting.