It looks like Tom Bachik, Chanel’s MAN-icurist, has himself some competition for most adorable male manicurist ever. While perusing Nails Magazine (yes, that exists), we stumbled across an article about Gerardo Chavez, who works in the shipping department at China Glaze’s parent company AII and were immediately charmed. It turns out that he has an artistic bent and started playing around with China Glaze’s polishes…and Gery the Shipping Guy was born. He even has his own Facebook page where he showcases his work. We had to talk to him, and he was nice enough to answer our questions about how he got started doing nail art, using FedEx supplies to make his designs, and his messiest design ever.

Fashionista: What’s your background/training as an artist?
Gery the Shipping Guy: Frankly, I cannot recall a time in my life when I have NOT been practicing art. As a child I spent most of my days armed with a handful of crayons ready to draw on whatever I could get my hands on (including the living room walls which my parents didn’t appreciate very much). My talent then shifted to the classroom–and even on to the classroom wall–after my high school art teacher let me draw one of my designs right on the wall with a marker. I continued to draw on walls when I was in the United States Navy. I painted a couple of murals on the USS Tarawa. I then received formal training in college and earned a degree in graphic design. Even though I was not able to get a job as a graphic designer I nevertheless continued to practice my art. I have even painted and mounted auto body panels on my Mustang. With so many colors of nail polish going through my shipping department I now focus my creative intuition on nail art.

What do you do at AII now?
Have any of you received sample products from the marketing department? {Ed. note: YES and we jumped up and down when we got our Hunger Games nail polish samples.} Wanna guess who packed them and shipped them out to you? Yes, yours truly has been taking care of all sample shipments as well as regular customer orders for almost two years now. I specialize in express, international, dangerous goods, and hazardous small package shipments that get sent out to people all over the world.

How long ago did you start doing nail art and what made you start doing it?
As the shipper for AII I see a great deal of different products go through my department. The “It’s So Easy” Stripe Right nail polish caught my attention about a year ago and I knew that I absolutely had to try it. PR representative Irene Chao was sending out samples and she was nice enough to let me have some after I expressed my interest. I painstakingly drew a zebra french tip design and sent Irene some pictures to see what she thought. All of a sudden I became Facebook’s “Gery the Shipping Guy” after she and many others thought it looked great. After that warm welcome into the world of nail art I have eagerly continued to experiment and have fun with more designs! Unfortunately Irene is no longer with our company but I owe her a great deal since she was the one who initially posted my designs on Facebook and provided me with any color polish I needed.

Do you have a favorite China Glaze color?
Favorite color? Blue Iguana. Favorite set? Electro Pop.

Did you see The Hunger Games? People went crazy for the Hunger Games nail polish you guys released.
I did not see the movie but I am very curious after hearing so much about it. I had fun one weekend trying out different designs, ideas and colors using the color set. I was mostly inspired by other people’s nail art and by the movie poster itself. I know I will watch the movie once it’s out on DVD.

Click through for the rest of the interview and a gallery of Gery’s work.

Gery's Hunger Games nails