Beholding Art & Life: Paul Cordes Wilm (Episode 18)
Charlotte Donlon talks to Paul Cordes Wilm about his art, music, and radio show. They discuss his creative process and influences, as well as some of the books, art, and music that have been nourishing him over the past several weeks.
Learn more about Paul Cordes Wilm and his art, music, and radio show here.
*
Why It Matters: Paul Cordes Wilm is a Birmingham-based artist, musician, and radio host whose vibrant visual art, experimental music, and playful radio presence reveal the profound ways creativity, memory, and identity intertwine. Paul’s work—layered, sweeping, at times hilarious or haunting—invites us to see ourselves as patchworks of moments and feelings, stitched together across time. In this episode, Paul opens up about intuition, resistance, selling art, and the ongoing tension between making a living and making something meaningful. He challenges us to let time, accident, and even decay have a voice in what we create.
Embrace the cycles of creative uncertainty, honor the transformative possibilities in impermanence, and explore what it means to be fully yourself in the creative and spiritual worlds.
>>> Creativity grows deeper when we let go of needing certainty or neat categories—and let intuition guide the process, even if it feels uncertain or unfinished.
>>> Allowing impermanence and change to shape your art (or your life) can open space for personal healing, evolution, and new layers of meaning to emerge.
>>> The creative life flourishes when we honor moments of resistance, rest, experimentation, collaboration, and renewal as equally valuable.
After Listening to This Episode, You’ll Walk Away With:
Permission to experiment, to not know, and to let your projects evolve—embracing the messiness and delight of the creative process.
A sense that art can be an ongoing dialogue with self, memory, place, and even the physical world—including time, nature, and decay.
Fresh curiosity about how your influences, background, and imagination might come together to make something uniquely your own.
Please check out this fourth mini-season and subscribe on your favorite platform. I’d also appreciate it if you could take a minute to rate the podcast and leave a comment to help others find it. Thanks so much for your support!
Subscribe to All of This & More on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe to All of This & More on Spotify
Subscribe to All of This & More on YouTube
Creative Prompts for Listeners:
Art as a Patchwork of Memory
Reflect on a piece of art (visual, written, musical, or otherwise) that feels stitched together from personal memories or experiences.
Describe what moments or emotions it contains for you.
How do layers of memory influence what you create or respond to in your own life?
Welcoming Impermanence in Creativity
Consider a creative work of yours that has changed over time—through edits, reinterpretations, or even accidents.
Write about the feelings that arise when you imagine letting your work change, decay, or be completed by time and others.
In what ways could inviting impermanence or collaboration with “the elements” become part of your creative or spiritual practice?
Photo of Paul Cordes Wilm from trimtabbrewing.com
About Paul Cordes Wilm:
Paul’s website and links to all the things.
Show Notes + Links: (LINKS COMING SOON!)
Paul’s Art
Paintings (mainly in a pop art style, often on found wood)
Ghosts, Hybrids, and Ghosts Series (including the ghostly angel piece used as the All of This & More logo)
Our Divided Circus (current show; united by the theme of a “divided circus,” featuring multiple untitled pieces, layered collage, sensory overload concept)
Piggly and Alabama pieces, Animal-headed pieces (bread-and-butter artworks for sale)
Bathroom Installation (interactive, black-and-white, left for viewers to color with crayons)
Paul’s Music Projects
Nowhere Squares (his band—described as “punk wave,” latest album: Cancel Your Plans, cathartic, self-help themes)
Psychic Tuesday Radio Show (Substrate Radio, every Tuesday 8–10pm, includes “Eight O’Clock Shuffle,” local music, “psychic requests,” eclectic, experimental playlist)
Mixcloud Mixes (prior to radio show; music mixes shared online)
Other Projects/Mediums
Video Collages/“Attention Blips” (Instagram: short experimental black-and-white video collages designed to confuse social media algorithms)
Photography for Instagram (using Instagram as a gallery and creative expression)
People Mentioned
Chris Lawson (artist friend, India trip)
Jason (founder of Substrate Radio, invited Paul to host the radio show)
Sister Sandra (high school art teacher, McGill-Toolen Catholic High School)
Mose T ("Mo T"—influence; house paint and found wood techniques)
Joe Minter (Birmingham artist—African Village in America)
Paul’s twin brother Peter
Robert Rauschenberg (huge influence, collage/screen-printing, abstract expressionist)
Jackson Pollock (drip painting style)
David Shillinglaw (British, murals, contemporary style/collage inspiration)
Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler (female abstract expressionists; referenced by Charlotte)
Julian House/The Focus Group (music concrète/collage music artist)
John Cage (composer, experimental/music concrète)
Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Eugenius Rudnick (early music concrète figures)
Places & Spaces
Crestwood Coffee (venue for art shows)
Woodlawn (neighborhood in Birmingham)
Substrate Radio (studio for radio show)
Lowe Mill (Huntsville, Alabama) (art show/closing on September 20th; large arts space)
African Village in America (Joe Minter’s environment/art project, Birmingham)
Spring Hill College (referenced pirate radio influence)
Books and Films Referenced
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Paul’s current audiobook listen)
Joan Mitchell Documentary (Charlotte references, documentary on Mitchell)
The Unseen (film—no familiar actors; referenced in context of “film noir” inspiration)
Music & Genres Discussed
The Beatles (White Album, “Revolution” “Good Night,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Hey Jude,” “Yesterday”; significant influence for Paul and Charlotte)
Music Concrète/Collage Music (“musique concrète,” The Focus Group, period/collage sound art)
Mose T’s painting with house paint
Mowgli’s Song (“My Own Home,” from The Jungle Book) (Paul’s emotional childhood music memory)
John Lennon song “Revolution” (referenced lyrics on politics)
Episode Transcript:
Coming Soon!