help with custom animated chests

So I have been struggling to figure out how to have an item with a GUI trigger an animation when the GUI is opened and again when it is closed. I am using nerdy's gekolib plugin. And I have created and saved the custom blocks and animations using the gekolib plugin for blockbench.

I am working on custom chests for minecraft which function as a chest normally would in the game. Using an open animation, freezing on the last frame when the GUI is opened, and using the closing animation when the GUI is closed, followed by the idle animation I have for when it is not being interacted with if needed. 

I have no problem making chest blocks as normal (not animated) custom blocks with a gui that works in the game like normal for storage, without an animation. 

I spent too much time staring at my computer screen trying to figure this out, and my brain power feels like jelly now. If there is a walkthrough for this or some instructions I can follow, I would be very grateful for them. 

And I am willing to use whatever version of mcreator I need to, along with whatever plugins that are necessary to make this work. I have like 20 different versions of mcreator installed on my computer already for this reason. (Everything between 1.20.5 to 1.24.4, excluding the eaps. Which I am also willing to utilize if they work best for this.)

But ideally, I would like to make the mod I'm working on for the forge mod loader using minecraft version 1.20.1 or greater. Although I am open to using fabric instead.