A portrait of the working artist

Ms Louise Walsh, a sculptor and lecturer at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), knows only too well the way in which artists juggle regular work that pays and time-consuming endeavours that often don't.

"I have 18 contact teaching hours, one day of administration and one research day. It's a full-time post. In fairness, I do get the summer, but it is quite a strain fitting it all in," she says.

"I give individual tutorials, group tutorials and then there are practical demonstrations and workshops. It can take up an awful lot of your problem-solving and creative energy."

Artists often strive to get full-time teaching positions in the main art colleges - "people would kill for them," according to Ms Walsh - but discover when they are appointed that it's a double-edged sword. "I still work as an artist, but it is stymied," she says.

Currently, Ms Walsh is in the middle of a year-long community arts project, having won a commission to sculpt a 40-metre long piece of street furniture for the Luas stop at James's St hospital.

Teenagers from three local schools are taking part in sculpture workshops run by Ms Walsh and some of their work will be attached to her sculpture and cast in bronze.

Ms Walsh sees her students going through the same dilemmas after they graduate.

"If you're a jobbing artist, going for commissions, it's very hard," she says.

Shortlisted artists could spend two or three weeks working on a detailed, fully costed project proposal only to find that they might not get the job, she explains. The small amount that some organisations pay to cover costs won't go very far toward the price of materials and printing, she adds. Rejected applicants are then often at a loss of both time and money. Artists also devote hours preparing for an exhibition, but costs such as materials, transport, rent, electricity and basic maintenance of the exhibiting space all conspire to wipe out any profits. The gallery will also typically take a 50 per cent cut, Ms Walsh says.

"The income is really quite low, and that's assuming you sell a few paintings."

The tax break under the artists' exemption scheme does ease some of the pain, Ms Walsh says. "When you do earn something, it really helps when it isn't cut again," says Ms Walsh. "For any artist it is a good thing to get. It doesn't mean that some people make a killing, it just makes it a little bit easier to be honest." Most artists don't pay into a personal pension, even if they have four or five sources of steady part-time income, preferring instead to plough that back into their artistic work, according to Ms Walsh.

And lenders often don't want to know.

"It's really hard for people to get mortgages," says Ms Walsh, who believes she was only able to get her home loan because, at the time, she had a full-time post at the Limerick College of Art and Design.

"I had lumps of money coming in from my artistic work, but I didn't know if or when another lump would come in. It was the Limerick job that was able to swing it."