Beholding Art & Life: An Introduction to Paul Cordes Wilm & Reflection Prompts (Episode 17)
Charlotte Donlon introduces Paul Cordes Wilm and her conversation with Paul, which you can listen to in the following episode, Episode 18.
Learn more about Paul Cordes Wilm and his art, music, and radio show here.
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Why It Matters: Paul Cordes Wilm is an artist, musician, and radio host whose work embodies the joyful unpredictability, deep experimentation, and honest uncertainty of creative living. His layered visual art, “punk wave” music, and playful radio show all invite us to consider how memory, color, vulnerability, and belonging are stitched together in every act of creation. By welcoming impermanence and the unknown, Paul’s creative practice becomes a mirror for listeners who are navigating their own cycles of risk, rest, surprise, and renewal.
Embrace the wild, layered nature of your own creativity, notice how memories and moments shape who you are becoming, and allow yourself to be surprised by what emerges when you invite impermanence into your practice.
>>> Art and creativity are living processes—made up of layered memories, experiments, and collaborations, not finished products.
>>> Welcoming change and the unknown can be radically generative, infusing creative life with joy, vibrant surprise, and resilience.
>>> Letting go of certainty—whether in art, identity, or spirituality—allows space for deeper authenticity and transformation.
After Listening to My Conversation with Paul Wilm in Episode 18, You’ll Walk Away With:
Encouragement to approach your own creative (or spiritual) practices as open, evolving, and responsive to time, memory, and collaboration.
Fresh insight into how “impermanence” and letting go can expand, rather than diminish, your creative possibilities.
Inspiration to reflect on your story—what moments, memories, or emotions you carry, and how the art you make (or love) contains and transforms them.
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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?
Episode Transcript:
Hello and welcome to All of This & More, the podcast for those who delight in exploring the intersections of art, faith, belonging, and wonder. I'm Charlotte Donlon, and I'm so glad you're joining me for this episode—one that’s especially close to my heart because it features an artist who embodies the wild joy and honest uncertainty that comes with a creative life.
Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Birmingham artist, musician, and radio host Paul Cordes Wilm. Paul’s work defies easy categories—it’s playful, layered, sometimes hilarious, sometimes haunting. If you’ve ever seen the artwork for this podcast, you’ve already glimpsed his world. In fact, that piece comes from his series “Hybrids & Ghosts,” where he reimagines ghosts not as empty sheets but as patchworks of memory, color, and meaning. Paul’s art and approach challenge us to think of ourselves, and maybe even our own ghosts, as stitched together from all the moments and memories we hold.
In our conversation, we talk about Paul’s background as a painter—what he calls his “bread and butter”—and how his process is really a practice in intuitive layering, with influences from found wood, weathered posters in India, and the colorful chaos of everyday life in Birmingham. He shares stories about his projects that are meant to sell and keep the lights on, and those that emerge from a place of deeper experimentation and personal inquiry.
We also spend time on his music and his beloved band, Nowhere Squares, which he describes as “punk wave”—think punk meets new wave, with plenty of catharsis and wild dancing. Paul talks about the healing that happens when people gather for a show, and how performing is as much self-help as it is entertainment. We'll hear a bit about his long-running Substrate Radio show, Psychic Tuesday, which brings together local musicians, new discoveries, and yes, even “psychic requests” where listeners send their vibrations for the next song.
But this episode goes much deeper than a list of projects. Paul reflects candidly about the push-and-pull between creative freedom and the realities of making a living, about embracing impermanence—literally collaborating with time, decay, and the elements by letting unfinished paintings weather outdoors—and about continuing to find joy and possibility in the cycles of burnout, rest, and inspiration. There’s a tenderness in how Paul describes both the thrill and the resistance of returning to creative work, and how sometimes the art that sells and the art that surprises him can both be essential.
We delve into big questions: What does it mean to live in the moment, to be disrupted, to let yourself—and your audience—interpret a piece new each time they see it? How does the algorithm shape our creative lives, and how can we push back with attention, delight, and surprise? You’ll hear Paul’s thoughts on abstract expressionism, the impact of artists who have influenced him over the years, and why he loves accidental collaboration—leaving crayons out for strangers to contribute to installations, or welcoming feedback not just in music reviews but in real conversation.
And, in true All of This & More fashion, the episode also touches on music, belonging, spirituality, and the lasting impact of formative experiences—from listening to The Beatles as a child to drawing in church as a way to get through Sunday mass, to navigating questions of identity and faith as a gay man raised Catholic.
To deepen the experience of this episode and honor the layered, evolving nature of creativity—as shared in today’s introduction—here are a couple of journaling prompts to support reflection and connection after listening. These prompts invite you to engage with the episode’s themes and discover new meaning within your own stories and creative practices.
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?
Okay. Whether you’re an artist, a maker, a lover of music, or simply curious about how creativity weaves together the personal and the universal, this episode is for you. Make yourself comfortable, pour a cup of something warm, and join me for a conversation that’s as unpredictable, layered, and full of possibility as art itself.