Born in Cameron, Texas, Charlie Jean Sartwelle is a native Houstonian.  She graduated from the Alfred C. Glassell School of Art in ceramics and sculpture and received a William A. Smith Endowment Award.

Ms. Sartwelle regularly participates in local and national juried exhibitions.  In 2008, her work was exhibited at the National Art Museum of Lima.  An international tribute exhibition commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr., opened at the Gabarron Foundation, New York in 2009, and traveled to Barcelona in 2010.

Ms. Sartwelle has been active in arts organizations serving the Lawndale Art & Performance Center, the Downtown Warehouse Art Crawl and the Buffalo Bayou ARTPARK. 

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Over the past 25 years she developed Mother Dog Studios, the oldest alternative studio and exhibition space that provides hundreds of local and national artists with working studio spaces to experiment and develop visual ideas.

Her public art projects are usually in collaboration with other artists.  Since 2002-2012  she has collaborated with artist John Runnels on three projects:  the Cotswold Commerce Street Corridor Project, downtown Houston, the Sabine to Bagby Corridor with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Deer Valley Water Treatment Plant Wall in Phoenix, Arizona.