Art is a house.

Or at least a part of Orenda Ayashe’s walls, which are painted purple, blue and orange, often matching her abstract art.

“I really love working with bright colors,” she said, looking at the green and yellow stones beneath her cone-shaped fireplace.

She’s one of countless emerging artists that have been pulled out of the woodwork into a growing Renton art community.

“There are people I see all the time around town, and I had no idea that they created art,” said Ryan Runge, co-founder of Arts Unlimited (AU), which is a volunteer-based Renton art group. “There are a lot of people that haven’t been discovered.”

Ayashe is one of about 65 artists that are teaming up with about 30 businesses for AU’s fourth annual Downtown Renton Art and Antique Walk Aug. 22.

“It’s not hoity-toity art show where you have to have 500 bucks in your pocket to buy something,” Runge said. “Come down to see what it’s about, even if you’re not interested in art…support the artists.”

Growing up in Manhattan, New York, art has always been important part of Ayashe’s life.

“Everyone in my family…was either artistically or musically inclined,” she said. “My grandmother and mother fostered…that in us.”

At age 13 she was admitted into Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, a prestigious public school that focuses on art and music education.

“I had to know what a portfolio was at 13,” she said. Part of the application process was a three-hour test with a still-life demonstration.

She studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Seattle in 1985, but soon her art career fizzled into occasional sketches.

Working various office jobs and as an activities director, she eventually started an organic cleaning business, called Scrublz.

“I wanted to do something that wasn’t involved in office politics,” she said.

What revived her focus on art is nothing short of psychedelic.

While listening to music, she realized she could see the color of the sound, a concept known as synesthesia.

“If I hear it, I can see the colors in my head,” she said.

In a painting about Yanni’s music, blue flames wiggle up a purple background and arches, looking like those of ping-pong ball, end with the beat of oval dots running across the canvas.

She’s now working on her Destiny series, based on a beach in La Push, which combines her brush work with writing and photography, she said. “These are a combination of all my talents put together.”

She discovered the Renton art community through an AU newspaper ad a few years ago and has been hooked ever since.

This summer she won the people’s choice award in the Allied Arts chalk art contest.

“It was fun,” she said. “And I was a dirty mess.”

This weekend she’s also planning to take part in AU’s art walk.

Spidering outward from South Third Street and Wells Avenue South, the artists plan to setup inside businesses and on the street.

Downtown is continuing to transform into a lively community with 20- to 30-year-olds leading the way.

“It’s great, the amount of energy we seem to have going, especially this year,” Runge said.

One of AU’s goals is to bring business downtown.

“The more places you allow people to gather and talk and be open, it just sparks that creative energy so much more,” he said. “It keeps them coming down here and seeing that they have a creative outlet.”

Arts Unlimited Fourth Annual Art and Antique Walk

11 a.m.-5 p.m., August 22.

Starts at South Third Street and Wells Avenue South in downtown Renton.

For more information visit http://www.artsunlimited.org/

To learn more about Orenda Ayashe, visit her Web site: http://www.orendaayashe.com/