About Healing Phoenix Arts
Healing Phoenix Arts is a mission-driven nonprofit program dedicated to supporting burn and trauma survivors through creativity, connection, and healing-centered experiences. The program offers workshops, discussions, and supportive gatherings designed to help participants process their experiences, share their stories, and discover renewed strength through the principles of Post-Traumatic Growth. By combining art, conversation, and community, Healing Phoenix Arts creates meaningful opportunities for survivors to explore resilience, identity, and hope after trauma.
The organization was founded by burn survivor Christopher Gage and his wife Holly Gage, whose family’s life changed forever after an explosion involving their mobile food truck left Christopher and their son Ryan with severe burn injuries. Their recovery journey revealed both the challenges survivors face and the profound impact of compassion, creativity, and community support during the healing process. Inspired by these experiences, Holly and Christopher created Healing Phoenix Arts to help other survivors find their own pathways toward healing and growth.
Today, the program continues to expand its reach through workshops such as Warrior Scar Jewelry, guided discussions, and other healing modalities such as Access Bars Energy Healing that blend art and supportive dialogue. These experiences are designed to create safe, welcoming environments where survivors can reflect on their journeys, connect with others who understand their experiences, and transform their stories into symbols of resilience and strength.
Christopher Gage
Christopher Gage is a Group Facilitator and Co-Founder of thE Healing Phoenix Arts Program.
Chris was burned 40% of his body in an explosion and fire in 2018. His recovery experience from his accident is the number one motivator that has driven him to a life of service in helping others recover through this Program.
He has also worked as a lapidarist, cutting and polishing gemstones. Prior to that, he worked for over 20 years in the culinary industry, including owning and operating a mobile food restaurant. The explosion and fire he was in have completely reshaped Chris’ life for the better, in a positive way, the result of working through the process of Post Traumatic Growth (PTG).
Post Traumatic Growth is a concept describing positive psychological change experienced due to struggling with highly challenging, highly stressful life circumstances.
During several years of PT and other therapies, Chris was introduced to Access Bars® as a way to work with his physical and emotional pain. Bars is a set of 32 points on the human head which, through light touch, stimulate positive change in the brain and defragment components of stress, thought, and emotions. Chris says that Access Bars® has had such a powerful affect in his well-being that he had to become certified as a Practitioner.
Chris is now enthusiastically sharing with as many people as possible what he has learned from his certification
as an Access Bars® Practitioner as well as an Expert Companion from coursework Understanding and Facilitating
Post Traumatic Growth with Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D. Chris has stated, “There is a wonderful teaching component
to all of this. I have a great need to give hope to those who have suffered trauma, stemming from the incredible
care and support I received from hospital staff, family, and friends who aided in my recovery.”
Chris experienced how powerful the arts can be as an outlet for trauma when he used lapidary as his personal
therapy soon after his accident. He says, “Being able to sit behind the machine with its noise and focus on nothing but the stone I was working on allowed me to escape the constant replaying in my mind of my ordeal and its consequences.”
Chris sees Healing Phoenix Arts, the Warrior Scar Jewelry workshops, and his Practitioner work as an incredible opportunity to complete a statement he made two and a half weeks into his hospital stay, “I need to do something with my life to give back to the burn and trauma community.”
Holly Gage
Holly Gage is the creator and instructor of the Warrior Scar Jewelry workshops and co-founder of the Healing Phoenix Arts Program. She has been making jewelry since the age of 13, has been published in more than 80 publications, and has received multiple awards for her jewelry designs, innovation, leadership, and generous spirit of giving. For nearly 25 years, Holly has taught students of all ages through in- person workshops, interactive online classes, and international retreats —sharing a soulful, transformative approach to creating art.
Holly’s commitment to trauma survivors began after her husband Christopher, and their son, Ryan, were critically burned in an
explosion at their mobile restaurant. Their recovery was long and painful, and their post-traumatic experiences differed greatly, both physically and emotionally. Witnessing these separate healing paths underscored for Holly that no two trauma survivors follow the same journey—and that healing often requires deeply individual approaches. She found that creating art can be a powerful way to process those experiences.
Six months after the accident, Holly began volunteering as an Activity Director at Camp Susquehanna, a four- day summer camp for burn survivors ages 6 to 16. There she introduced the Warrior Scar Jewelry project, which helps campers create keepsake jewelry replicating their scars while accommodating their varying abilities. “The paradigm shift from hiding their scars to honoring and sharing them as they became the centerpiece of their jewelry was truly exhilarating to see,” says Holly.
Since that first experience, Holly and Christopher have developed multiple workshops for the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors World Burn Congress and various support groups—helping create a growing demand for healing through art.
Holly holds a B.S. in Fine Art and Education and an Art Therapy Practitioner Certification. She combines art and
dialogue as a healing modality and is double-certified as a peer support volunteer for burn survivors (SOAR) and
trauma survivors (Boulder Crest Foundation).
Christopher’s own Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) was life-changing. Both he and Holly were inspired by his dramatic transformation and positive outlook. All too often, the focus remains on the negative aspects of PTSD; discovering the lesser-known field of PTG motivated them to make this teachable skill set available to as many survivors as possible during the appropriate stages of their recovery.