Cody Cosby Creations: via Daylilies, Dragons and Silkworms 

Tue, 03/07/2023 San Juan Record

By  Janet Wilcox

   

When you combine curiosity with motivation you
get a Cosby masterpiece.

   Though his profession is in the medical field, Cody has mastered resin work, silk painting,

  

cooking, and raising unique plants.  His most complicated undertaking, however, has been

his silk paintings; mainly because he raised his own silk works and then extracted the  silk 

threads himself!

  In 2010 he purchased three different kinds of silk worms and kept 200 of them in a bin at a time,, 

feeding them mulberry leaves exclusively. Once the worms spun their cocoons, he had to boil 

the larvae in water to loosen the threads, as they are bound with a gummy substance. He had close

 to 30,000 cocoons to “unthread”.  He next learned if you put food coloring into the food they eat;

 it will also change the color of the thread as well as the worms themselves.  “It was very inter

 extreme science fair experiment!”

    A kindergarten teacher in Spanish Fork once did a facetime with Cody on the whole life cycle 

of the silkworms, as he had all stages simultaneously going on right in his front room.  “This

only lasts about two weeks—from moths to eggs, to instars. The silk moth only lives a week at 

the very most, because they’re born without mouths, so as soon as they mate, they die but if they 

don’t mate before that week they die because they can’t eat.”

One of Cody's silk paintings.

   The hardest part in the whole process is finding the end of the silk threads and carefully pulling out

 the silk. The thread is so fine, like hair, that sometimes a magnifying glass has to be used. These 

threads are then wound on a spindle and collected eventually on a bobbin. Then they were sent 

to a weaver in Eugene, Oregon. This led to the idea of painting on silk. “I saw a Chinese panel 

that I thought looked interesting, so I further investigated and thought, ‘OK! I can do this!’” He first built 

a frame which was about four feet tall and two and a half three feet wide and then 

attached the silk. He next created 16 stencils to use. 

    Before actually painting, however, Cody had to cover the silk with a special compound 

which stops the dye from spreading further. This was used to outline what he would paint with 

the specific colors and shades of acrylic paint. Despite the challenge of keeping his cats from 

climbing the panels, he was successful in keeping them away. 

 

    He has also created all kinds of decorative objects using resin.  The process starts with two 

ingredients mixed 1.1: one a hardener and one epoxy. They are mixed until they are completely clear yet 

still bendable like plexiglass.   When heated there is a chemical change. “You cannot let the 

resin cure completely because you have to be able to bend it,” he explained.  “Once it’s cured, it is 

solid and will just break. Prior to that it needs to be malleable, a bit tacky in order to add creative 

flourishes.  

   It’s not heavy and it looks like glass but you can drop it won’t shatter." They are dried in a kiln.”  

He prefers using a resin that self-heats and as it sets up as it hardens. Because it is a form of plastic, 

no kiln is used.  The resin is left to cure in molds until the desired hardness is reached.

    Cody has also made about 15 decorative eggs, selling some locally and others as far away as 

Tennessee, California and even two in Japan. “I honestly am kind of flabbergasted that people are 

interested in it because this is just what I do at home!” 

   Initially, Cody created simple objects to hang from car mirrors, then he experimented with additional kinds 

of crafts and in the process learned new skills.  "Right now I am a total hermit with ADHD and this is what I 

do to occupy my time.  It's creative and fun!  Right now on my table I've got six different projects going on: 

flowers, eggs, and two dragons!"

   Cody has also made snow globes, which were the hardest thing he had ever done--even though it had 

the smallest number of components.  He's also made Native American themes hair barrettes with feathers. 

and flowers. Another specialty has been valentines and candy boxes.  They are very small, only 1-2 inches 

tall." I use candy molds to make different kinds of resin chocolate.  On a couple of them he even drizzled 

chocolate resin over the candy. 

      One of his earlier creative efforts was as a horticulturist.  He learned how to 

cross pollinate plants and created his own combination of red/ purple/ yellow daylilies.  That 

effort took several years to complete as the seeds from each plant have to grow, then be 

cross pollinated again to add the additional color genes. 

 

  

But as in Cody's case, "If you can dream it, you can do it!    He practices that mantra often.