Vicki Bennett

Vicki Bennett's life interfered with an early interest in ?ber arts- spinning, natural dyes, and weaving as she progressed through graduate school, marriage, family and a long career as a psychotherapist. Midlife, she relocated from Ann Arbor, where she had been an active member of the Handweavers Guild, to Chicago. From country mouse to city mouse, she felt lost until she found a new career as a wildlife and conservation
educator at the Lincoln Park Zoo and new venues for pursuing her passion for creating with natural ?bers. 

She used her time in Chicago to study at Lillstreet Art Center and with Akemi Cohen (Shibori and Nuno silk felting), exhibit and teach fiber arts. As she worked with wools, silks and dyes, she found it to be the perfect combination of form and function. To start with raw animal ?ber and move it through the centuries old techniques of felting it into a piece of wearable art or a vessel with colors that mimic nature is a real joy for Vicki. Oftentimes, the process begins right in a barn where Vicki chooses the sheep’s wool.

Then, working with a myriad of textures and colors and feeling the ?bers turn to felt, step by step, is both ethereal and earthy at the same time. Vicki currently teaches ?ber arts at the Morean Arts Center and  also volunteers at the Raptor Aviary at Boyd Hill Nature Park. Vicki has a second home in Asheville, NC and next year will begin teaching classes in ?ber arts and working with the Red Wolf Recovery Project and the WNC Nature Center.