Struggling in art, be poor apprentice (11)
I believe the answer is:
probationer
'apprentice' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'struggling in art be poor' is the wordplay.
'struggling' indicates an anagram (I've seen this in other clues).
'in'+'art'+'be'+'poor'='inartbepoor'
'inartbepoor' with letters rearranged gives 'PROBATIONER'.
(Other definitions for probationer that I've seen before include "one under legal supervision?" , "Person given Test" , "One on trial in post" , "New employee" , "Novice" .)