Carrie Beth & Sean McGarry
Carrie Beth and Sean McGarry both grew up just outside Buffalo, NewYork. They met in high school and even played husband-and-wife partnersin the musical Anything Goes. Carrie Beth played one of Reno’s “Angels”and Sean was a singing sailor. Sean thought Carrie Beth was out of hisleague, and she was equally as impressed by him. But that’s where it ended. Theiractual romantic involvement would not happen until years later.After high school, Sean went on to study organic chemistry in college, eventuallydropping out when he realized it wasn’t his passion. But during those first collegeyears, he took an elective art history course that really interested him. That coursewould stick in his mind, and he ended up going back to Buffalo State College tostudy art history, criticism, and conservation. After living in Chicago for a fewyears, Sean followed the path of his family and moved to the sunny state ofArizona in 2010.When Carrie Beth graduated from high school, she planned to go to college tostudy classical piano performance. She had been playing from the time she wasthree years old, and it seemed only natural to continue with a degree in music. Butlike Sean, Carrie Beth found her passions to be elsewhere. Although staying in thearts, she switched her undergraduate major to musical theater with a dance minor.She went on to travel with a theater group but veered toward the managementside rather than performance. She continued her studies and received a Master’sin Arts Management from the University at Buffalo.The couple tell a funny story about meeting up 15 years after graduating fromhigh school. Sean, while living in Arizona, was invited to be the best man ata wedding in Buffalo. On a whim, he connected with Carrie Beth via Facebookand asked her to meet up for a drink. It turned out to be much more than a firstdate, though, as she unknowingly became his plus-one at the wedding. They’vebeen attached ever since.Carrie Beth moved with Sean back to Arizona. They eloped somewhere off thefreeway between Sedona and Phoenix, where the only notary they could find tosign the marriage paperwork was at a local jail. As their marriage evolved, so dida unique artistic partnership. Their first collaborative artistic project (unless you goback to their high school musical days) was a Millennium Falcon “guardian angel”for their daughter’s bedroom (which, the couple says, is still in her room). Then,together, they formed the artistic endeavor FunWOW.FunWOW was inspired by a page in a kid’s book by Buffalo artist MarkFreeland. In a thought bubble above an illustration of himself, the writerwas expressing sarcasm over the chemotherapy treatments he hadbeen on while fighting cancer. The name FunWOW also came about asthe couple needed a single name for their art submission to decorate arecycling bin at the Coachella Music Festival. (The concert, by the way,was reported in 2017 to produce 107 tons of waste each day.) FunWOW, for thefifth year, will contribute a recycling bin design for Coachella 2020.In another collaboration, and what has become their focus, the couple acquired{9} The Gallery from founder Laura Dragon in early 2018. About a year before,Dragon had been diagnosed with cancer and needed help running the space. Shetransformed the gallery into an artists cooperative, and Carrie Beth became amember under the FunWOW moniker. After the purchase, Carrie Beth and Seankept the name {9} The Gallery but eventually changed the business model from acooperative to a more traditional gallery, striving to show a wide variety of workfrom local artists.