West Coast Diaries Vol. II

Charlie Peacock, (born Charles William Ashworth, August 10, 1956) is an American painter and mixed-media artist based in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. In addition, he is a Grammy Award-winning music producer, songwriter and recording artist. His diverse, musical collaborations include, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Civil Wars, Switchfoot, Bela Fleck, Ravi Coltrane, and Chris Cornell. In January of 2019, at 63 years of age, Charlie began painting as mindfulness therapy for a neurological disorder. He calls it “a welcome meditation, not unlike fly-fishing was for me twenty years ago." At the beginning of 2020, he began mixing acrylic-on-canvas with 8mm film. Many of his 2020 pieces use this evolving method. Reflecting on his work, Charlie states: “As a record producer, and jazz musician, I’ve always known the power of failure to produce problem- solving, leading to imaginative creativity. My artmaking is no different. I fail often in order to find the end of my ability, in order to find the path to something new. The fact that I have a hand tremor and muscle spasms means I have to be more about the exactness of feel than the effortless, straight line. And that’s okay.”