Faraway So Close Local artist participates in exchange program, comes back inspired. by ASHLEY FANTZ t's a scene straight out of a movie. Picture this: A long table topped with boiled shrimp, cucumbers, dragon fruit, and California wine. Vietnamese and American diners, having trouble crossing the language barrier, smile and nod. Then our hero Pinkney Herbert reaches into his jeans pocket and begins to communicate what anyone can understand -- the bluesy whine of a Marine-band harmonica. Interrupting the clink of silverware and soft scissoring of chopsticks, the Memphis painter rises from his seat, unfolds his lanky 6-foot-5-inch frame, and breaks the proverbial ice. A Vietnamese artist sitting next to him stands and dances with his arms outstretched. Another woman bursts into French operatic song. American artist Sam Scott performs jazz skats. "We were all visual people; we didn't need language," Herbert says. "We were just trying to make connections. Isn't that what artists do?" After returning from a week in Hanoi, Vietnam, for the opening of "Outward Bound, American Art at the Brink of the Twenty-First Century," the first American art exhibit in the communist country, Herbert says he feels more energized and inspired than he's ever been. Showing his bright, abstract work alongside paintings from such 20th-century greats as Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Chuck Close was only part of the thrill of the show, which will travel next to China, Singapore, Beijing, and Jakarta. The exhibit has a much more far-reaching meaning to the artist. "To have this exchange of ideas and to show them what America looks like and feels like through art is so important," Herbert says. "I was part of that [Vietnam war] generation. I missed the draft by one year. When I think about what I saw of the war on television and compare that with all the graciousness and the beauty of the country, it was overwhelming." The Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., organized the exhibit as part of a cultural exchange. Artists, chosen from a cross-section of the states, submitted 10 slides for consideration. A balance of abstract, realistic, and pastoral pieces were chosen. The exhibit was limited to paintings but sampled lithographs, oil on photographs, and linoleum cuts. Images as American as a diner coffee machine, birch trees and farm landscapes, a honky tonk bar, a New York City pay-phone scene, and a strip mall have not defined America, but have given Asians a chance to see it from many perspectives. "Outward Bound" is the follow-up exhibit to "A Winding River: The Journey of Contemporary Art in Vietnam," spearheaded by the Meridian Center in 1991. The earlier show traveled extensively across the States and received praise not only for its bold aesthetics, but also for its social and political implications. United States Ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson -- a former Vietnam POW who is now married to a Vietnamese woman -- is a vocal proponent of the artistic exchange. Also, in a rare representation of corporate American, the Mobil Corporation paid for most of the exhibit expenses, including the airfare and accommodations for artists to meet each other. "It was music to my ears to listen to these people in button-down suits, heads of corporations, talk with a genuine sense of appreciation for art," Herbert says. New Mexico painter Sam Scott, and New York artist Anthony Brunelli joined Herbert in Hanoi. The trip was especially emotional for Scott, who lost friends in the war. He collaborated on a painting with a former Vietnamese intelligence-officer-turned-artist. Although anti-American sentiment still exists, Herbert says the Vietnamese artists and citizens were warm and welcoming. "I noticed that there were a lot of older men and a lot of women -- widows, probably, rather than men around my age," he says. "The younger generation is curious about America. There's a true graciousness to them and their lifestyle." Photographs the artist took are paintings waited to be created. A snapshot shows a man riding a moped in the rain, behind him a stream of screaming pink silk caught in the wind; a triangular rice paddy hat -- the color of olive skin -- hangs on a green-and-brown marketplace stand; a fireworks explosion of gold, red, blue, and orange makes up a hanging lamp for sale outside a small village shop. Herbert also captured images of a disintegrating communist state -- army-green Ho Chi Minh hats and a billboard advocating support for the government-employed proletariat. One of the artist's most memorable experiences was swimming in the Ha Long Bay, popularly known in America as the Gulf of Tonkin, where one of the most controversial battles during the Vietnam War took place. Herbert's latest work, a triptych picturing a looming magenta lotus, balanced by shadowy mountains, was Vietnam-inspired. The painting will hang in the Memphis International Airport soon. "You let go of your Western ego," Herbert says. "You have to let yourself take it all in. I want to get back there to maintain that connection. I think the highest compliment I received was from a Vietnamese artist who said, 'You understand the Vietnamese experience. You can live here now.'"