Artist in distress and difficulty (6)
I believe the answer is:
strait
'difficulty' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'artist in distress' is the wordplay.
'in distress' indicates an anagram.
'artist' with letters rearranged gives 'STRAIT'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for strait that I've seen before include "Inlet" , "Narrow passage joining two large areas of water" , "Narrow - artist (anag)" , "Narrow sort of traits (6)" , "Narrow channel of the sea joining two larger bodies of water" .)