A former tool-making factory in inner-city Dublin proved the ideal setting for young artists wanting to set up a new print workshop, gallery and studio space. But the co-operative is also connected to the broader community through the evening classes that pay the rent. Arminta Wallace reports

Light streams through the windows and the smell of oil paint wafts down the stairs. Situated just five minutes or so north-west of Parnell Square, on the corner of Dominick Street and the Broadstone, the squat, grey Hendron building was built in the 1940s to house a tool-making factory; 60 years on, its second floor is producing artefacts of a rather different kind.

Cathy Henderson and Angela Pilkington have carved a print workshop, a gallery and studio facilities for four full-time artists out of the airy space the call The Workroom - while in another part of the building, a further nine young artists are busy with hammers, nails and paintbrushes, establishing themselves as a self-funding studio co-operative.

The project began as an attempt to overcome the chronic shortage of studio space in Dublin's city centre - and then just grew and grew.

"We were in a group studio, and we were happy there, but we needed more space, primarily so that we could set up our printing presses," says Henderson. "I had got a press from the Lagan Press in Belfast, from a commercial printer who knew I was interested in print-making. Then a press came up for sale from the Black Church, so we thought we should buy that as well and have a print workshop. And when we saw all this space, it made sense to think about a gallery, too."

When still more space became available on the Hendron building's cavernous second floor, the co-operative seemed a perfect way of offering studios to young artists at the lowest possible rate.

Finding premises suitable for an art studio is, as Henderson and Pilkington discovered, a tricky business. Some of the properties they came across were, predictably, too expensive. Others were just too, well, finished.

"We looked at a place on Great Strand Street which was not only way, way out of our league in terms of rent, but had, into the bargain, already been refitted as offices," says Pilkington. "They had carpeted the floor, lowered the ceiling and put in little office units and stuff. We were looking for lots of wall space, concrete floors, open rooms. Here, we don't have to feel like we're ruining the floor or the walls - and if we do, we can just paint them over again."

In January of this year, they moved into 1,800 sq ft of empty and rather eerie space, populated only by the silent mechanical remains of a clothing factory which had moved out several years ago. They knocked down one wall and put up another, determined to make the most of the plentiful natural light while retaining the Hendron building's gritty industrial feel. Now Pilkington and her husband, John Hunter, share one studio, while down the corridor, video artist Mickey Smyth has been installed in an editing suite.

"This building is perfect for us because of its size and its shape," says Henderson. "And its facade has recently been listed, which is great."

The Workroom is an apt name for a studio space that is flanked on all sides by people making their daily bread in one way or another. The ground floor of the Hendron building houses a car showroom; round the back is a body works; there's also a gym, a clothes factory "and a guy doing prefabricated windows". Dominick Street itself is a lively mix of working-class Dubliners and immigrants from Africa and Asia. Outside a nearby block of flats a group of kids has comandeered a broken-down garden bench; with a trampoline placed in front and a mattress behind, it becomes an impromptu piece of gym equipment over which they fly cheerfully, one after another. No ivory towers for Henderson and Pilkington then?

"A lot of artists are very inward-looking because they only work with other people in the art world," says Henderson. "It's actually very good to involve ourselves more in the broader community. Because we took over this bigger space we have a massive amount of rent to pay each month, which is fine - but rather than just try to turn out more work to meet the increase, we have art classes in the evenings. It's good to get people who aren't actually part of the art world into the studio."

"Real people," adds Pilkington with a grin, "as opposed to artists. In the oil painting class that I do, my students tend to look at my abstract paintings and go: 'My God, is she going to be teaching us?'. But I think they understand now that there's a link between abstract painting and oil painting; that you have to walk before you can run; that you can't just pick up a brush and squash it around, although it looks like that.

"I'm teaching them very traditional techniques of painting, and when you learn these things you can actually go off and do something else that's a bit more experimental."

In addition, Pilkington offers a Saturday morning portfolio preparation class for second-level students, and Henderson gives life drawing classes. They have also been involved in a series of workshops with the local primary school at Henrietta Street.

Henderson's white-walled studio is crammed with drawings and portraits, some head-and-shoulders, some full-length, a couple of nude studies. "I've always been very interested in drawing people," she says. "I started with rapidly executed drawings of people who weren't actually sitting for me. I did a couple of exhibitions of drawings of backstage workers in a theatre in Belfast, where I grew up, and I also did a series on the Orange parades."

PERVERSELY, this led to an interest in more studied portraiture. "In college, academic drawing isn't really very heavily focused on, so you don't get a huge amount of training in draughtsmanship as such," she says. "I've really learned most about that since I've left college."

Apart from one painting at the RHA gallery, she hasn't yet exhibited any of these portraits - "I'm still trying to build up my confidence in that technique and style" - but will have an exhibition ready for The Workroom by September.

Pilkington, meanwhile, is putting the finishing touches to the exhibition that will see The Workroom opens its doors, officially, this Thursday. Chunky canvases lean against one wall, strangely delicate abstract shapes executed in generous, intense sweeps of colour, blood-red, gentian-blue.

"I'm interested in how, with painting, you can make it look like something or like nothing," says Pilkington. "These are sort of microscopic worlds, you know? Planets, or something - imaginary worlds."

Is it a joy to work with such vibrant colours? "I'm drawn to colour. I can't help it. And there's a lot of history in the struggle to find colours and learn about colours and all of that. You don't just leave art college and turn out this kind of work - it has been a real struggle to get to where I am now."

Originally from Sligo, Pilkington did a diploma at the Regional Technical College there, then a degree at the National College of Art and Design, followed by an MA in film at Dublin City University. Then she went to Spain, where she met her husband; they now have a house in Malaga province and spend part of each year there.

"So I suppose there's a lot of heat in the paintings," she says, laughing. "And I definitely get that from going to Spain."

Will itbe happy ever after at The Workroom? Maybe not. The landlord is offering only a year's lease, with the promise of one renewal, and the Hendron building may yet fall victim to the current craze for redevelopment. "We think we have two years, tops," says Pilkington. "But you never know. People's plans change. But for the moment, we're here and we're happy."

Alison Pilkington's exhibition opens at The Workroom on Thursday at 6 p.m, and continues until June 29th, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday. For details of classes, tel: 01-8303211 or 01-8301119.