Artist settled back and spoke (6)
I believe the answer is:
radial
'spoke' is the definition.
(I've seen this in other clues)
'artist settled back' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'settled' becomes 'laid' (I've seen this before).
'back' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'laid' backwards is 'dial'.
'ra'+'dial'='RADIAL'
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for radial that I've seen before include "Coming from centre" , "a sort of drill" , "Like Circle Line" , "Spreading from the centre of a circle" , "Diverging from a common centre" .)