From water to wire
Peters Township woman creates wire art after years as aquarist
From swimming with sharks to shaping wire into words, Julie Cody has quite the resume.
The Peters Township woman has gone scuba diving with Mickey Mouse at Walt Disney World, swam with sharks and cared for a Giant Pacific Octopus at an aquarium in Texas, only to return to Western Pennsylvania to launch her wire art business, Wire Creations by Jules. Her handmade creations range from bookmarks to pencil toppers to bridal hangers.
Her story begins with an interest in water that has its roots in her childhood, when she went on fishing trips with her father at Canadohta Lake in Crawford County.
“My dad would take me bass fishing and that got me hooked on fish,” she said. “I never would have imagined ending up working with ocean animals, but that’s where my passion with fish kind of came from.”
While a student at Penn State Behrend, Cody became intrigued by a fish room in the campus science building and eventually became the student to care for the fish. As part of an elective course, Cody became certified in scuba diving with dives in frigid Lake Erie.
That led her to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where she obtained a professional internship at The Land, a pavilion at Epcot theme park.
“I actually got to work with shrimp, American alligators, striped bass and tilapia,” Cody said. “Essentially, my job was to care for all of these animals.”
She followed that stint with a six-month professional internship at The Seas with Nemo and Friends at Epcot, the second largest aquarium in the country. It was there she acted as a safety diver when Mickey Mouse went scuba diving. Cody refers to that as one of her Disney highlights.
“I know, it’s like a super cliche, but it was literally like a magical time in my life,” Cody said. “When I look back on it, it almost feels like it was a dream.”
She was eventually hired as an aquarist at the Sea Life Grapevine Aquarium in Grapevine, Texas, located about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas. While there, she transported sharks and stingrays to and from other aquariums, and was the primary keeper for a Giant Pacific Octopus. She was the go-to person for media requests during Shark Week, and swam with sharks while performing underwater tasks like feeding the stingray.
“Accepting that job is basically what shaped my life right now,” Cody said. “It was a smaller aquarium, so I really got to do my own things and bring my own ideas to this aquarium. That is where I feel I really started to blossom.”
It’s also where she met her husband, Chris, and began to dabble in wire art.
“When I was at the aquarium, I knew that it wasn’t a forever job,” Cody admitted. “I knew when I had kids that I wanted to still be a contributing member of the family.”
In preparation for her wedding in 2015, Cody wanted to give her bridesmaids clothing hangers bearing their names. It was a costly bridal party gift so she decided to instead make them.
“They looked horrible, but my bridesmaids loved them,” she said. “When I look back on them, I don’t even think you could read what was on them, but they appreciated the gifts.”
She ended up getting a request to make the hangers for another wedding, and said those looked better.
That led to creating ornaments, book markers and other assorted wire creations.
“Somehow, it really flourished,” Cody said. “Family members or friends would share that I do this.”
The Baldwin native longed to return to Western Pennsylvania, and moved back in 2019 after having the second of her four children.
“My husband had a remote job, and it was the perfect time to move back to Pennsylvania,” Cody said.
Her Wire Creations by Jules is flourishing: Her goods have been marketed by Personalization Mall and Things Remembered.
She recalled receiving an order from a small business for 6,500 bookmarks bearing the word “hope” and said it took her six months to fill it.
Now that her children are a little older, Cody has been able to display her pieces locally, and recently appeared at the “Think Spring” Handmade Craft Show at Trax Farm Market in Finleyville.
“I’m so happy to be back here,” Cody said. “I feel like I’ve been able to get back out in the community and talk to people. I love letting the people watch what I do because I don’t think it’s something they’ve seen before.
“The business flourished out of the idea of having a real business at home. I honestly could have never imagined it would have become such a real business.”
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