LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/17/12 --

Date: September 22, 2012, 4-9 PM
Blake Avenue, Los Angeles
Complete event line-up & directions: www.frogtownarts.com

The artists of Los Angeles's Elysian Valley, known as Frogtown, are pleased to announce the 7th annual FROGTOWN ARTWALK, a celebration of creativity and talent flourishing in the working class neighborhood along the LA River. The event, in which artists, artisans and architects open studio doors to the public, has become an annual destination event for thousands of LA art fans.

This year's expanded Frogtown Artwalk will feature a series of mobile gallery "pods" in which artists from other parts of Los Angeles competed to show work. The temporary galleries will line Frogtown's main street, Blake Avenue. "I See Hawks in LA" the highly acclaimed alternative country band will perform at RAC DesignBuild, one of Frogtown's resident architecture firms. Newly installed lights along the Los Angeles River bicycle and pedestrian path will allow visitors to wander the area, where years ago frogs rose up and invaded the local streets, giving Frogtown its unique name. Among the artists who have discovered Frogtown is Bill Lagattuta, former LA television anchorman and an accomplished painter and photographer. Lagattuta photographs and chronicles the working lives of his fellow artists on his popular website: www.madeinfrogtown.com.

More than thirty artists and craftsmen will open their studios and lofts for this year's self-guided tour and art celebration, including landscape painter Mary-Austin Klein; At Tracy Stone's TAS Gallery, Randy Stauffer and Diane Kohne will present new work in an exhibit titled "Lost and Found," artisan woodworker Emette Rivera of reMADE Galleries will feature handcrafted furniture; Craftsman Pat Byland will feature a line of hand-made musical instruments called "cajongos," Allen Anderson of Grain Surfboards will be showing hollow hand-made wooden surfboards. Other featured artists include: the drawings of Paloma Marquez from the mountains of Argentina; the work of Samma Negus, a nun living in the area for over 30 years, along with rock photography by Kristy Sparow, custom guitars by Gabriel Currie of Echo Park Guitars, and woodwork by Joel Morin will all be at the Starchariot Studio. Additionally, The Elysian Valley Arts Collective (http://www.evartscollective.com) has sponsored a juried art show for kids, with the honorees exhibited at the 7th annual event.