I’m Not Here
to Look Pretty

I’m Not Here to Look Pretty examines the expectations placed on women’s appearance and the ways beauty can become a measure of value. Using clothing, the body, language, and repetition, the series questions who defines how women should look and how those expectations shape the way we see ourselves and others.

The work does not reject beauty or the desire to be beautiful. Instead, it asks what happens when beauty becomes an expectation rather than a choice, and what it means to exist outside that measure.

I'm Not Here To Look Pretty (Dress)

2026

Hand built porcelain, underglaze, hand embroidered cotton, ribbon

“I’m not here to look pretty” is a phrase I have repeated since childhood and throughout years spent working in male-dominated jobs. It became both an assertion and a reminder that my appearance did not determine my value or why I was there.

I wrote and embroidered the phrase repeatedly by hand across porcelain and cotton. It begins small and controlled, then becomes larger and looser as it moves down the dress, eventually giving way to “I just am…” with the needle still attached. As the words change, the assertion becomes something more open-ended: a question about who we are when we stop measuring ourselves through other people’s expectations.

I'm Not Here To Look Pretty (Bikini)

2026

Hand built porcelain, underglaze, ribbon

When I was twenty, cancer surgery left me with a seven-inch scar across my abdomen. Someone told me I would never wear a bikini again. My response was, “Why not?”

The bikini returns to that early question about who gets to decide how a woman’s body should look and whether a body must meet certain standards to be seen, displayed, or valued. Made in porcelain, the work uses an object associated with exposure and beauty standards to question the expectations we place on women’s bodies.