For Clipped-in, the group of artists behind Castle Park Art Centre's upcoming exhibition, Beyond Landscape, this has been a very strange year.

The five friends and colleagues, who work across a variety of media, from textiles to ceramics to charcoal, are united by their love of mountaineering, an activity which inspires many of their pieces.

Usually, therefore, the artists would immerse themselves in the landscapes of Britain, Europe and beyond, drawing from mountain and seascapes in the creation of their work.

However, earlier this year, just as the group decided on Beyond Landscape as the theme of their latest exhibition, the Covid-19 pandemic promptly put paid to any hope of interacting with these natural environments in person.

In this series of articles, I speak with Clipped-in's artists about the effect of lockdown on their work, as well as their vision for the Beyond Landscape exhibition.

Sue Marsden

"My inspiration would normally originate from the landscape," textile artist Sue Marsden tells me, "from hill walking expeditions, climbing trips and visits to museums to have a look at the materials that are used."

However, with the coronavirus lockdown limiting her to the inside of her home, for Beyond Landscape she could turn only to her own drawings and materials.

"I started by looking back at old sketchbooks and journals. I keep a visual diary all the time and there were loads of ideas in there that I found really exciting and that I hadn't had the chance to explore."

Therefore, despite its inevitable strains and frustrations, Sue began to find that lockdown, and its enforced emptying of her schedule, was having a positive impact on her work. It was the first time she had had the "luxury" of being able to revisit these half-realised projects, and develop them into something more tangible.

"As well as there being drawings and sketches and little bits that I'd found and stuck in there were lots of words, which were really helpful in bringing back memories of a scene or a smell, or the sense of being in that place," Sue says.

While she would usually travel to new places for her work, lockdown saw her drawing from the landscapes that had always been surrounding her, but which she had never properly explored before.

"I was coming to Frodsham to walk the Hill, and it made me see that landscape in another way, and that has definitely informed my work more this time, which is really nice because, of course, this is where the work is going to be exhibited.

"I liked being in those woods and then getting to the top and looking out towards Wales and across the estuary. Very often it wouldn't be a crisp, sharp view, but something kind of fuzzier, softer, and I found it really inspirational.

"I really enjoyed that aspect because I'm so used to going further afield to bigger mountains or more dramatic coastlines and it was so nice to just focus on what I'd almost missed in the immediate locality."

As she considered her response to the Beyond Landscape theme, Sue began to think more and more about the wind, and the contrast between its unseen forces and the visible traces it leaves over every aspect of the environment.

"I began drawing the lines of these imagined elements," beginning with pens and ink, and moving onto thread and fabric. "Sometimes [the lines represent] the wind, sometimes they're the movement of the clouds, sometimes they're the movement of the breeze through a tangled undergrowth.

"I was trying to describe something abstract, something that you can't actually see but which I felt," Sue explains.

"So I was still involved with a rural landscape, but I felt like the ideas were beyond that, because they were more abstract: they weren't just describing a place. I always think that I could take a photograph to record that memory, so I'm trying to record other things that your senses engage with."

Although many of the pieces in this exhibition feature felt work, Sue was trained and works primarily in weaving.

"I like the structure of a weaving, because there's a formality to it," she says. "It's quite mathematical. But you can also be quite free and loose with the material that you weave with and that adds another dimension to it."

She adds that, as a child, "we were out a lot in the countryside and made aware of all those sensations, textures and surfaces. So I think I've always had that in me, and this is a really good way of expressing it."

Sue's interest in depth and structure lends her weavings and felt work sensual and evocative, a tactile counterpoint to her fellow artists' paintings and ceramics.

The Beyond Landscape exhibition will run from Wednesday 16th September – Wednesday 28th October at the Castle Park Arts Centre gallery. Entry is free and the centre is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm.

You can find out more about Clipped-In, including commissions and previous exhibitions, here.

Sue can be contacted at: [email protected]