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GREENSBORO -- Perry Vasquez never could have predicted this scene 40 years ago. Vasquez was just a kid back then, a quiet youngster with artistic talent struggling to adjust.

He had moved in 1967 from a multicultural life in California to High Point. There, he would spend his youth during a time when census figures didn't even count Hispanics or Latinos separately.

Even he didn't understand his roots.

"I didn't know what a Latino was in those days," he says.

Fast forward to summer 2008.

Vasquez, 49, has flown from his San Diego home to Greensboro to see the most extensive exhibition of contemporary Latin American and Latino art ever presented in the state.

He hasn't lived in the Triad for 31 years. But here, at UNCG's Weatherspoon Art Museum, Vasquez's colorful silk-screened prints and sculpture fill part of a gallery.

The "TRANSactions" exhibition introduces a diverse mix of Latino art and artists to an increasingly diverse region, where the Hispanic population of Guilford County alone topped 25,000 at last official estimate.

Vasquez noticed the transformation on his last visit in 2001: more Latino workers, more Mexicans in his old neighborhood, more Mexican restaurants, more diversity.

"The audience and the context for the show have changed so much ... ."

Following his nature

Vasquez's art, like that of most artists, stems from his life experiences.

That decade in High Point proved formative for him and his brother, Randy. Perry's art skills would be nurtured there -- at Ferndale Junior High and High Point Central High School, at Hayworth Wesleyan Church and at home.

Seeing his brother's artistry inspired Randy to express his own creativity, stepping onto an elementary school stage for his first performance and eventually becoming a TV actor, most visible in the series "JAG."

Although the brothers relish visits to High Point, they look back on their youth there with mixed feelings.

"I had some anger when I was growing up here, but I had a lot of happiness, too," Perry Vasquez says.

They had spent their early years in Escondido, Calif., with the influences of different cultures -- Mexican grandparents, a Mexican-American father and a Southern mother.

But when their parents divorced, their mother, Joyce, moved them closer to her family in High Point.

"We were in a different part of the world, where it was wet and green, and where people were different," Randy Vasquez recalls.

Perry Vasquez does not recall being affected by prejudice in High Point. But Randy does.

"My skin was a little darker than my brother's," Randy Vasquez says. "And being in the South in the 1960s and 1970s, that was an issue."

Although they had African American friends, they felt the unrest of racial animosity and civil rights struggles around them.

"I felt I was living in a city and state in which injustice was part of the reality," Perry Vasquez recalls.

Despite that, he was blossoming as an artist.

Kathy Warren, his Spanish teacher at Ferndale Junior High, remembers Vasquez as a quiet, somewhat melancholy and talented student who gave her one of his paintings.

"His artwork was just gorgeous," Warren says. "I was amazed that a ninth-grader could do something like that."

She gave her student a book featuring the works of artist Vincent van Gogh. And while Vasquez lost track of Warren until recently, he still has the book.

"Van Gogh taught me that an artist should always be close to nature, and nature was always a very real part of growing up in North Carolina," he says. "It taught me to follow my own nature, and not be distracted from what I really want to do."

And that was to become an artist.

Life imitating art

When Stanford University accepted him, Vasquez returned to his home state to study art and political science.

In his 20s, he delved into the Mexican side of his heritage, reading works by Latino writers and watching Latino films.

"Up until that point, I had trouble blending those two differences, intellectually and emotionally," he says.

Today, his paintings, prints and other art blend a lot more.

Mexican and American heritage.

Childhood memories.

Civil rights.

Politics.

Satire.

They all meld in "Keep on Crossin'," Vasquez's installation at the Weatherspoon.

It's an impassioned call for crossing borders of all kinds to expand social and psychological boundaries.

The "Keep on Crossin'" idea hit Vasquez and collaborator Victor Payan in 2002, as they joked about challenges artists faced in trying to persuade customs agents to let them bring contemporary art over the border.

They borrowed Mr. Natural, Robert Crumb's familiar "Keep on Truckin'" figure of the 1970s, to satirize border politics.

In a wall of silk-screened prints and in three plaster of Paris figurines, they transformed Mr. Natural into a stereotypical caricature of a Mexican peasant striding over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Vasquez also drew on childhood memories of the stereotypical image of Pedro, mascot for the South Carolina tourist stop, South of the Border.

As a child, "I didn't think about it being politically incorrect," Vasquez says. "I thought it was comical."

They purposefully had the figurines made in Tijuana, by the manufacturer that produces figures of popular icons such as Homer Simpson for American tourists. Although the Latino experience drove the project, the idea also comes from the civil rights movement, Vasquez says.

"I think both of those inform my art," he says, "Not always in an obvious way, but I try to weave them together whenever the opportunity presents itself.

"It's a difficult situation for immigrants with illegal status. All they have is their humanity, which is lost in the shrill debate about immigration.

"What I do has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting illegal immigration. I am commenting on the emerging reality."

'This is who I am'

As the Weatherspoon exhibit prepared to open, Vasquez's pride mixed with anxiety. He's unsure how High Point relatives, friends and others will react.

"I am bringing this artwork and saying, 'This is who I am and this is who I have become,'" Vasquez says. "I am waiting to hear a response."

When friends saw the installation in San Diego, one liberal Anglo friend objected to the stereotypical figure, but Latinos saw the humor in it, he adds.

"I have some old high school buddies coming," he says. "I think this will pop their cork."

At the Weatherspoon, the response is praise.

"It is thrilling for him to be able to have that here, to show his belief in human rights," says Joyce Vasquez, who came from California to see her son's work. "When we lived here, I don't believe it would have been acceptable. But it was well received."

Cousin Keith Jones of High Point remembered their elementary school years, when they drew soldiers and battle scenes together.

"I never thought it would inspire him ... to have his work exhibited," Jones says.

Longtime friend Randy Laster , who worked with Vasquez at Food World while they were students, expressed awe that Vasquez had stuck to his dream.

"We have different backgrounds, but our diverse backgrounds blend together and make us good friends," Laster says. "It's kind of what his art is all about."

Staff researcher Diane Lamb contributed to this report.

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com