In a world often too hurried to pause and observe, Pia Paulina Guilmoth offers us a profound gift: the chance to truly see. When reviewing the submissions to the PHmuseum 2024 Women Photographers Grant, her deeply moving project, Flowers Drink the River, stood out immediately as something extraordinary. It was an honour to select her for this feature and to delve deeper into her story. Pia invites us into a realm where beauty and resilience entwine with raw vulnerability. Her work, documenting the early years of her gender transition, transcends mere visual artistry—it is an ode to self-discovery, identity, and the quiet yet powerful defiance of creating joy in the face of adversity.
Pia’s images shimmer with an ethereal quality, blending delicate natural elements with an unflinching gaze at the complexities of her lived experience. Her process—slow, intentional, and deeply connected to the natural world—speaks to an artist whose vision is both painstakingly personal and universally resonant. Whether sculpting with spiderwebs or capturing the nocturnal peace of rural Maine, Pia’s work is a meditation on patience, co-creation with nature, and the unyielding pursuit of beauty as a form of resistance.
Pia’s honesty and authenticity shine as brightly as her imagery. Her reflections on identity, community, and the transformative power of art are a testament to her singular voice in contemporary photography. It is a privilege to share her story—a story that not only reveals the resilience of the human spirit but also reminds us of the magic and meaning waiting to be found in the everyday.
Pia Paulina Guilmoth
b.1993
(she/her)
AG. "Flowers Drink the River" documents the first two years of your gender transition. How has this personal journey influenced your artistic vision and the themes you explore in your work?
PPG: It has in every way imaginable. Starting to medically transition saved my life in 2022 when I was at the lowest. I just wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for it. Until a few months into starting hormones I had spent the greater part of my life essentially dissociating from myself, and my body. Looking for escape through others, drinking, working nonstop. kinda just distracting myself from facing what would end up being a reality altering process. Fast forward and my body began her metamorphosis and it was like shedding a skin that had brought me so much pain, self-hatred, dysphoria since I was young. It’s like being born all over in a lot of ways: re-learning how to navigate the world not only as a woman but as a trans woman which comes with it’s own type of resilience, finding community, caring for myself, navigating a fucked up healthcare system and it’s constant failures in order to stay alive. A common misperception is that hormones just alter your appearance, which couldn’t be further from real. Hormones began to change the interior landscape and brain functioning before anything else. It’s a mind/body harmony that is in a constant state of growth and discovery. I started working on Flowers Drink the River about a week before starting hormones. I had a sense of hopefulness and excitement in starting my life over again, which fueled me to want to create something beautiful and celebratory. I was also confronting the terrors of being a transsexual in a rural, mostly right-wing town. Making art is one of the ways I can find some solace.
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AG: What drew you to photography as your primary mode of artistic expression? Were there specific moments or experiences that solidified your choice?
PPG: I was drawn to the immediacy of using a camera when I was in my early twenties shooting demolition derbies and the local county fairs. I wanted to be in chaotic situations and just like running around wild with a small point-and-shoot. Things have changed a lot. I can’t say that I have much immediacy in my practice anymore as all of my processes are extremely slow and patient.
AG: Are there particular photographers, artists, or movements that have deeply influenced your approach? How do these influences manifest in your work?
PPG: Imogen Cunningham, a lot of the early pictorialist photography, and recently I’ve been obsessed with Tee Corrinne after seeing the new book that Charlotte Flint edited called A Forest Fire Between Us. It’s really beautiful work centered around lesbian community gatherings in the 70’s and 80’s. Such a beautiful testament to queer joy and togetherness.
I resonate with artists that photograph their own communities that they belong to, and people that love and trust them.
AG: Your creative process involves staging sculptures with natural materials and allowing environmental factors to interact with them. Could you elaborate on how this collaborative approach with nature informs the narratives within your photography?
PPG: There’s a lot of chance involved in my work. There’s a lot of waiting and observing and learning behaviors from animals, insects and plants. Nature has always been a place of comfort for me and has taught me perseverance in my personal life and on my journey of transitioning. In my work I want to celebrate the beauty of the natural world, and convey it’s magical qualities that often get overlooked in people s daily lives in this fast paced capitalism driven world. I think there are also a lot of people that don’t have the chance to even take the time even if they would like to. The things I’m looking to show don’t appear unless I can devote hours to learning their habits, or staying up late into the early morning setting up sculptures, and searching for animals.
AG: Living as a trans woman in a small right-wing town presents unique challenges. How does your work address the complexities of seeking beauty and safety in an environment that may be at odds with your identity?
PPG: I think that my work addresses the complexities of living here by seeking out, and creating things that bring magic to my life. I wouldn’t so much say that my work is addressing safety but rather is a result of my seeking safety and acceptance in my everyday normal existence. The way I want to relate to the world, to other queer or trans people is not to literally show how hard life is, or to show the horror but to show the things that I have made in response, and in protection from the terror that the world can bring. And I think that the nighttime, and spider webs, and the backwoods can be eerie and “dark” but maybe some people are just so used to sunshine, paved roads, and picture perfect suburban communities. But these things are where I ve found peace with myself. I’m more afraid of the daylight than anything. It’s a time when I ve had most of my scary encounters with people, been harassed, been followed. At night it’s a lot easier to hide from danger, or not be detected at all as most people out in the country here retire to their homes. Obviously it’s never entirely safe to sneak into abandoned houses but that’s taken some practice.‘
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AG: Your photographs often feature nocturnal animals, ethereal landscapes, and ritualistic scenes. What symbolic meanings do these elements hold, and how do they contribute to the overarching narrative of your project?
PPG: I don’t ever prescribe meanings to the symbols in my work. And I think that the symbols emerge accidentally most often. Like the spider webs, the snakes were never symbols but rather beautiful things that I would see while I was out wandering. I then get obsessed with something and then start to imagine all of the ways in which I can portray it, and monumentalize it. It’s my way of showing my respect, and fascination with something. Each photograph is a ritual in a sense, as it’s making me slow down, and breath in my surroundings, I lose touch with reality or whatever place my head was in beforehand. It’s very meditative. I try to make photographs that take the viewer to a different place that is unlike the one experienced in everyday life. Which i think is the goal for most rituals whether they are spiritual or religious or transcendent.
AG: Working with large format film cameras can be demanding. What motivated you to choose this medium, and how does it align with the themes and aesthetics of "Flowers Drink the River"?
PPG: I have always embraced, or sought out slowness in my life. Both in the place I live, and the way I aspire to be, I think I ve always been a pretty anxious person in my past, and art and being with people I love are the things that allow me to really exist in a moment. It’s a state of hyperfixation when I m shooting, and it actually puts me at ease. The waiting, the searching, observing small details in my surroundings is also peaceful for me. I think what s changed over the years is my ability to accept and move on from “failures” or mistakes I make. Using a 4x5 and having large negatives allows me to really accentuate the smallest details in things, and be able to blow the photographs up to a large scale as well. It is always a challenge when I m photographing living animals and insects though. But that challenge is fun for me.
AG: Your process often involves intricate preparation, like building trust with animals or setting up delicate sculptures. How do these acts of patience shape your relationship with photography and the stories you tell?
PPG: It allows for a deeper connection with my surroundings. So many of my interactions with the world go way beyond just taking a photograph and It’s always important for me to build a connection with something, to communicate, or interact with a thing before making a photograph.
AG: Large format photography is celebrated for its precision but can be daunting to master. How do you balance the technical demands of the medium with the emotional and mystical qualities you aim to evoke in your images?
PPG: Honestly just many years of working with the same camera. Like I feel as though just in the past two years I’ve actually gotten to the place I ve wanted to be at for my whole life, with photographs that is. Maybe a few years ago I was able to pinpoint what I was striving for, aesthetically speaking, and just recently I’ve gotten my technical skills to be in harmony with that. I think if you were to talk to a “master” they would probably think I was a total fool. But it’s just about finding something that works for myself and doing it over and over, almost all self taught through trial and error. I do everything my own way, I develop my film in the sloppiest way ever (in the bathtub), I use a lot of duct tape, everything I own is at least somewhat broken or doesn’t work the way it’s intended.
AG: You ve mentioned that your work is about harnessing beauty as a form of resistance to a world full of terrors. Can you discuss how aesthetic choices in your photography serve as acts of defiance or empowerment?
PPG: For myself, making art and photographs is a search for beauty in my life and in my world. It’s the foremost goal before anything. Themes emerge from that search for beauty, but really I just want to fill the void with things that evoke wonder, and awe, and excitement for the things on this earth. Resistance for me is saying: “you can try and take everything from me: healthcare, easy access to the hormones that keep me alive, safety, affordable housing, etc. but you can’t take away my joy and the ability to find beauty in my life”. Trans people, amongst other marginalized communities, have so many threats to our merely existing in this world.
AG: "Flowers Drink the River" includes portraits of your trans and queer friends, lovers, and chosen family. How do these relationships influence your work, and what message do you hope to convey about queer communities in rural settings?
PPG: Queer people are often few and far between out here in rural areas. The relationship that I have with my chosen family and friends is very special to me, and I wouldn’t be here without them. When I started to transition, I didn’t have many people in my life that I could relate to. There was definitely an intense period of grief that happened over losing cis, straight friends and family when I began to come out. There’s nothing worse than having to fear that the people in your life won’t be able to really “see you”, or to respect the process of becoming yourself. In some cases this fear overshadowed the reality. Like a lot of the people I lost at the beginning of my transition, have slowly become part of my life again, and it took me trusting that they really could erase their previous perceptions of me and see me as a woman, use my new name, and understand that the process of transitioning isn’t an instantaneous thing. It takes a lot of work to undo 30 years of testosterone absolutely wrecking my body, both physically and mentally.
I got closer to a lot of new friends/family, and formed really important bonds that gave me hope throughout this journey. Some of those people are within the pages of this book, though not all of them (something I want to do for my next book). All of the fuel I get to keep making art is because of the loved ones in my life that inspire me through their art, through their love, and through the time that we get to be together.
AG: Your work attempts to show an alternative to the masculine and extractive history of the medium. In what ways do you seek to redefine or challenge traditional narratives within photography?
PPG: I find that a lot of “documentary” photography is made by someone from outside looking in. I see this done respectfully sometimes, and I don’t always get the ick from this way of working, but I often can’t get beyond the sort of privilege, and entitlement that comes with a lot of projects that addresses poor, working class, and marginalized communities that are often made by people with some fancy grad school degree, or who have no connection to the people they are photographing that goes beyond just an aesthetic, voyeuristic interest. For me it’s really important to photograph the people and things that I have real relationships with and care about.
AG: How does your background as a working-class individual from rural Maine shape your perspective and the stories you choose to tell through your art?
PPG: So I was born in rural New Hampshire, just a couple of hours from where I live now in Maine. My background coming from a working class environment and family really shaped the core of who I am and what I value in life. I was given more opportunities in life than my family before me: going to undergrad, being able to spend time on something as abstract and ridiculous (from an economic standpoint) as making art, relying on art grants and fellowships to keep me alive. But I never expect nor want to leave my class bracket. Luckily my rent is extremely cheap where I am, which allows me to do what I do. Up until a couple of years ago I was working full time as an elderly caregiver, then I was a part of a union cleaning bathrooms for a local school, and making photographs when I would get home from work. My parents don’t own a home, and live in the same house with my grandparents, on the same road that their parents lived on back when the family farm was the only thing within a mile. I’ve left because I am trans and can’t ever safely, or comfortably come out to my grandparents. But I’ve always shared the same sort of desire to be in a place and never leave. I feel like when I was younger everyone wanted to move to a city to find opportunity, and success. I wanted to be somewhere that reminded me of home, and have just the bare minimum. It just means that I’ve had to try extra hard to get my work into the world, as there isn’t a “contemporary” art scene in a place like this, and no opportunities besides manual labor, working at a gas station, or carpentry and things like that. The internet has made it possible for me to continue making art, really. I think my photography is a testament to how endless the possibilities are in any given place when you put in the effort to find them. I kinda like the phrase “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
AG: You employ careful analogue techniques in your photography. What significance do these methods hold for you, and how do they enhance the emotive quality of your images?
PPG: I have a hard time not getting super distracted by screens, and my phone and computer. I feel like it’s often a pretty destructive force in my life when I m feeling low, and being in the woods, and having a practice that is hands-on and analogue is a grounding presence. Growing up I worked on farms, and for landscaping companies and then up until a couple years ago was a caretaker/caregiver at a large country estate. I need to have some form of manual labor in my life to feel fulfilled, and shooting with film, working with chemicals, and building my photographs from start to finish keeps that aspect of “work” in my life that I need.
And on a technical level working with film, and sometimes in a darkroom enables me to print my photographs at a super large scale and retain artifacts of grain, dust, and control the smallest details in the images without worrying about pixels. I appreciate a lot of digital processes as well, and rely on scanning for book projects and prints. I also have an interest in outdated digital technologies too which I have explored in some of my smaller zine projects like “Do you believe in forever under a star” which I released with Serchia Gallery last year. There are some images in that which I made with a 6mp digital point-and-shoot, and some of the photographs were found on an SD card inside of a camera that I found for $5 at a local junk sale.
AG: How has your approach to photography evolved over the years, especially during the creation of "Flowers Drink the River"? Are there any techniques or practices you’ve discovered that have surprised you?
PPG: I think I have always been working on the same project in a sense, as my work is always an extension of the things happening in my life, and follows me through life. So the evolution of my work is the evolution of me in a way. But I ve always photographed my immediate surroundings, my friends, and my family. Flowers Drink the River was made at a time when all of the things in my world were upended, even my relationship to myself. Finally I was taking care of myself and actually celebrating the things in my life. Whereas in the past I was always looking to escape, even if subconsciously or something.
A new thing in my work that has become a thread is the act of waiting, patience, and the element of chance that has become more present. I’ve also been photographing a lot in the small barn space that I call my studio with backdrops, and paper, and bringing fragile elements of the outside world inside to photograph them. The photograph of the hands holding the spider web was shot by using a method that I created where I can actually move a spider web, using bent Mugwort stems, and scissors, from nature and bring it to whatever location I would like. It’s a tricky process that takes a lot of attempts, as the webs often break. I have a setup in my car that I can hang the webs from after I collect them. In that photo I transported the web about a mile in my car and then brought it into my house, where I proceeded to drape it over some freshly picked Black-Eyed Susans. I then coated it in Mica dust that I collected from a nearby mine.
AG: Following the release of "Flowers Drink the River," what themes or projects do you envision exploring next in your artistic journey?
PPG: I want to photograph more of my friends this year. I am working on a series of expired polaroid 4x5’s that uses bioluminescent powder. I have been making a lot of photographs of the moon and stars using homemade lens filters. I am also working on a book with my girlfriend that is made up of over 10 years of collected, archival material that we have together, and individually collected from local abandoned houses, flea markets, and yard sales.
