Diaz should know. In his professional life as a musician he is called Charlie Conga Diaz, one of New Haven's well known "congeros," and the head of the group Sabor Latino. Over the weekend he was admiring the acrylic-on-canvas painting of the man standing to his left, Felipe Soltero, one of ten artists showing in "Latino Passages," the most recent offering at ARTE, the three-year-old Latino cultural organization and gallery on Grand Avenue just before the bridge.

"So do you think you'll . . . uh . . . buy it?" asked Soltero.

"Price is not the issue," Diaz responded. "But . . .other considerations . . ."

We'll leave Soltero and Diaz to consider his other considerations, and return to him later. In the meantime, ARTE's executive director David Greco (on the left) was deftly introducing the various showing artists, such as Ricky Mestre, to visitors. While the art work was all primarily, but not exclusively, by Latinos, the crowd was both Latino and non-Latino, underlining one of the missions of ARTE: To bring Latino artists and audiences to the rest of New Haven, and New Haven's non-Hispanic art appreciators down to Fair Haven, and to get in on the ground floor with these artists, many of whom are at the beginning of their careers.

Another of ARTE's missions is to nurture young Latino artists with modestly sized but meaningful grants, about 15 a year, for scholarship money for classes, training, or supplies. Ricky Mestre, who is based in Bridgeport but also has shown at Small Space and other galleries in New Haven, was one of ARTE's initial beneficiaries. His somber painting, over his left shoulder, titled "The Angels Wept," was in certain ways the result. It depicts figures in a cemetery, many in sculptural poses, with limbs cracked and breaking; the work has a history in Mestre's life as a teacher's aid, volunteer, and counselor in inner city schools, and, of course, with roots in his own life:

"I grew up," he said, "seeing lots of lives cut short by violence. That's why I made these figures. I always work with the human figure. Here, with these, they're images of lives that haven't been finished yet. I mean there were a couple of kids I worked with in Bridgeport who were killed as teenagers. You see over here they are sprouting angel wings before their time, and that's why they're weeping."

How did Mestre get the figures to be so realistic?

"I work with the human body, but I used to do cartoons, and I wanted to move closer toward realism," he said. "So I asked some friends of mine to let me photograph them in the poses I would use in the painting. Then based on that, I created the images in the painting."

As Mestre stood beside another work of his on exhibit at ARTE, "Death by a Thousand Cuts," he was chatting with Javier Velez, his friend, about Center Youth, the three-year old center on Fitch Street that Velez said was the state's only haven and drop-in center for gay and lesbian high school kids. The work on the wall in its Saint Sebastian-like theme was not unconnected to the trials undergone of some of the kids who go to Center Youth's regular Tuesday night 5:30 to 7:30 meetings. "Some of these kids are on the receiving end of a lot of pain," Velez said, "as they declare their gender identities," said Velez.

"One of the reasons I painted 'Death by a Thousand Cuts,'" replied Mestre, "was that friends said I was some kind of martyr, with people just taking pieces out of me. So if you look at the figure, he's got physical strength, muscles, he's not wasting away like a saint, but still he is cut up badly."

When Center Youth was getting started three years ago, and Velez was looking for a logo, he went to Ricky Mestre. Mestre volunteered his time and work, with the logo appearing now on Center Youth T-shirts and elsewhere. "Hey," said Mestre to Velez, "with all our volunteering, half our lives are lived for free!"

But Velez answered by saying they received support from their families and from the Latino community when they were younger. They both agreed that giving back, through volunteerism and through art was the right thing to be doing. It was also ARTE in action, for support of the arts is inextricably connected in the view of ARTE's founders, Greco and Danny Diaz (pictured here with Felipe Soltero), with providing inspirational and creative role models for Latino youngsters.

So, in the meantime, what was happening with Charlie Conga Diaz's deliberations about Soltero's painting? Had he decided to buy?

"The problem is," Charlie Conga Diaz was saying to Soltero, "I love the work, but I need to convince my wife. I promise you I'm going to work on it."

As gallery-goers spilled out onto the pleasant front yard of ARTE overlooking the nexus of the Quinnipiac River and the Grand Avenue Bridge, one of the city's historic centers of commerce -- and now of art? -- Danny Diaz proudly said that they had already sold four works.

It was not clear at press time whether Ricky Mestre's was among them, although one of Soltero's (not the congero painting) was. Danny Diaz did say that there was a gentlemen who expressed an interest in "Death by a Thousand Cuts," and was coming back on Saturday afternoon to review it again.

"The interesting thing," Diaz said, "is that this time all the buyers and interested buyers are Latino. It just proves one of the things I have been saying: that a market for Latinos by Latinos in art does exist here."

Latino Passages runs through June 23 at ARTE, 19 Grand Avenue. Besides Soltero and Mestre, the other artists showing include: Corina Alvarezdelugo, Gerry Ruiz-Cirino, Ana Cristina Collazo, Daniel Lind, Felipe Molina, Eva Romero, Miguel Trelles, and Rafael Tufinyo. For details, gallery hours, or to get information to apply for an ARTE grant, call 203-787-2785.

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