Btritish Textile Artist Debbie Siniska has worked professionally from her home in East Sussex as a designer, maker, teacher and writer for the past 20 years specializing in rag rug making using the shuttle hook and recycled textiles. Her rag rugs are made using traditional and contemporary techniques. Debbie is also a felt maker, and makes felt clothing bags, hats and jewellery. Recycling and sustainability are an integeral part of Debbies work - and the enduring thrift craft of rag rug making has survived the span of time, to be as relevant today as it was in the early 1900's.
She had taught in schools and colleges, at young offenders centres and at women's refuge. She also visits textiles groups up and down the country. The Tate Gallery in London commissioned and sold her Bloomsbury rugs which accompanied an important Bloomsbury exhibition to celebrate the millennium.
She was also commissioned to make a reproduction of an old Bloomsbury rag rug for Charleston Farmhouse, home of the Bloomsbury literary and art group of the 1920's in Lewes East Sussex, that is open to the public. The rug now lies in Maynard Keynes bedroom in the house.
Debbie works to commission for interior design companies and privately, and she sells through galleries and art shows. Her work has sold in the United States, France, Switzerland and Australia. She has published a book on beadwork jewellery, and has contributed to many craft magazines, and books on related subjects. She holds pop up workshops in Kent and East Sussex and teaches at the West Dean College in West Sussex. Her successful project Creativity in Schools, a fun hands-on art project, gets children working with traditional hand tools, and recycled textiles.
Debbie is a member of the Sussex Arts Collective, The Heritage Crafts Association, and she is on the register of makers at the Crafts Council of England. She has appeared on BBC television and on Channel 4 with Kirstie Alsopp on her Homemade Home series.
Debbie's book 'Rag Rugs - Old into New' is available to buy, go to the 'Home' page to order your copy
