When Charles was a child he would sketch with his mother who was a Sunday painter. She would give him a pad to draw dinosaurs, coke bottles and Peter Pan to keep him from bothering her. When she coldn't get her oil paint caps off the tubes she'd let him light matches to heat them up to loosen the caps. First clue: The intoxcating smell of paint.

Later, several years of college culminating with an MFA from Yale University.

After a brief flirtation with the East Coast art scene, Charles "commits art suicide" (in the words of one of his mentors) and moves to small town Santa Cruz, CA to live quietly, raise a family, and paint, and pursue a spiritual life (not necessarily in that order). Thus began many years of day jobs that supported his family and his devotion to art. (His most unusual job - butler to the heiress of McDonalds in Fairbanks Ranch, CA.)

They add up. 50 years of painting, abandoning paintings in attic crawl spaces, writing little chapbooks of poetry and photocopied paintings...

Now, well into his 70s, Charles continues to paint and live his version of the spiritual life as mediated through paint.