My name is Garie Chavez. I’m an artist and a musician. I own GC Creative Works located in North Peoria, Arizona. I handcraft custom live-edge wood art and furniture design from weathered-down trees found in suburban metropolitan Phoenix area. Acquiring logs from tree services and individuals allows me to create 100% sustainable, repurposed live edge wood designs.
As a musician and having a passion for playing guitar, one of my favorite design is a custom, live-edge guitar hanger with fractal art. What is fractal art? It is a process of applying 20,000 volts of electricity to the wood surface, basically recreating a lightning strike in slow motion as well as unique abstract figures, trees and vein-like shapes. I scrape off the charred remains and apply epoxy resin with color inlay to seal the burns created during fractal-art process on the surface of the wood. I apply Old Masters clear satin gel polyurethane finished and use String Swing guitar hardware.
I support Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers because I believe in their mission statement; “to make a difference in teens' lives,” helping them meet their spiritual, economical, physical and social needs through a safe, engaging environment during non-school hours.”
As a teenager growing up in Southern California in the 70's, I wasn’t into sports and didn’t belong to any school clubs. After school, you would find me at a music store hanging out for a couple of hours before going home, and of course, on the weekends. I still remember going to Hogan’s Music store. For me, learning to play an instrument was vitally an important part of growing up. It definitely kept me out of trouble and helped me gain self-esteem and confidence. We didn’t have programs like Alice Cooper’s SOLID ROCK Teen Centers back then. You had to create your own teen center by forming a rock-and-roll band in the garage.
It’s always good to give back to the community and invest in its future by helping our teens of today. And I’m so proud and honored to be part of this great organization and the future of their teens. Thank you so much Alice Cooper, for this opportunity to tell my story. Keep Rocking Forever!
