All in a day's work: Tara Byrne, director of The National Sculpture Factory, Cork

I can't ever get to work before 9.15 a.m. - no matter how hard I try. I have to spend an hour in the morning at home in contemplation of my day. Today, I kicked off with an interesting meeting with the Meridian Theatre Company. We are working with them on the commissioning of a project that brings together the creative talents of visual artist Daphne Wright and playwright Johnny Hanrahan.

This process is painful. Visual and literary artists work in very different ways. I am acting as a conduit between an individual who is a stickler for record and detail and another who hates to tied down to explicit expression. It's like watching a car crash. It should make for a very interesting piece of art.

Wrangling out some common ground between them takes until lunchtime, and then I head for my lunch meeting with a local artists' focus group. Over sandwiches and coffee, we examine ways to make Cork a friendlier city for sculptors. We are considering the establishment of an artists' resource room in the city - an informal place for discussion and research, a place with the vaguely pretentious sounding name "critical space".

I visit the local authority offices to discuss the commissioning of a new sculpture project for the city. We expect to pursue an urban vs rural theme, as that is a central dynamic of Cork life.

Insurance is a big worry for the arts administrator these days. Projects are being jeopardised because of high insurance costs. In many cases, insurance companies refusing to cover projects at all. Last year, we wanted to suspend the rope bridge from the Giant's Causeway over a street in Cork, but we couldn't get cover. The most recent soundings coming from the insurance industry indicate that sculptors will have to get their own insurance to work on large-scale projects. That would be disastrous. Very few artists could afford that.

We're hosting a lecture in the Crawford Gallery this evening. I'm heading off to take the guest lecturer for a tour of the city. I love this part of my job - a stroll through the city streets with a incredibly talented and interesting people from the arts world. We walk around the city and see some exhibitions, meet some local artists. I give my garbled version of Cork city's history and enjoy some very stimulating conversation. This week's visiting lecturer is Richard Wentworth, a British artist who taught Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst. He gives me some fascinating tales from within the Brit Art camp.

We then make our way to the lecture theatre at the Crawford gallery, where I sit and listen. Wentworth works with cities, he creates installations that draw on the quirky and hidden characteristics of the urban space. I am impressed to note that he has worked Cork into his lecture with only my rough guide under his belt.

We'll have dinner at about 8p.m. with a good mix of friends, local artists and interesting characters from the county. These gatherings stimulate great discussions and can spark artistic collaborations.

People always assume that an arts administrator must be an artist on the side. I'm not. I have always been involved in the education and administration of arts, but that's a very different thing to being an artist. It's not my place to get involved in the creative process and at the end of the day, I switch off from all things sculptural. I love my job, but it's no vocation. Sculptures are no substitute for life.

In coversation with Louise Holden