I’m driving out of Tijuana on a Saturday night after a daylong margarita excursion. The sun is going down as my Chevy Blazer lingers behind the seemingly endless line of cars waiting to be let back into San Diego. As I look out the window, my eyes are assaulted by a blend of images unique to Tijuana. Suddenly the air outside my window is overwhelmed with the familiar scent of warm sugar and cinnamon. That’s when I see it: a traditional Mexican cart vendor selling fresh churros. The vendor approaches with his hand-crafted vehicle, and I examine the device pumping out the churro dough. It is constructed out of a pipe and a ’70s Mustang steering wheel. The tires are from an old Volkswagen Beetle and the cart is covered with a Corona beach umbrella. Artist Julio Cesar Morales brings the world of the cart vendor to San Diego this month at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Morales’ exhibit was inspired by his grandfather’s work for 25 years as a Tijuana burrito vendor. The carts are undeniably part of the aesthetic particular to the border town, and he views them as a form of folk art built with both pride and humility.The Cerca Series exhibit Informal Economy Vendors exposes a peculiar aspect of these border salesmen by exploring the mechanics of the contraptions which transport their product.Morales’ artwork is displayed in five different art forms – the first is a series of blueprints of six different vendors and their carts. The profile of the vendor and his cart are lined drawings on a white background. Though the drawings are simple, they are filled with details of what the vendor is selling and what their carts are constructed out of, inside and out.On the walls are chaotic drawings of the vendor carts’ parts. The jumble is an exploded view of the recycled parts used to put the carts together.The next component of the exhibit was the clay statuettes of the actual vendors. Though only about eight inches tall, designed in mid-action, they are captivating and full of life. The detail and love Morales put into the small figurines is apparent down to the design on the cowboy boots on one of the vendor’s feet. On a wall to the right of the clay pieces stands a flat-screen television – the display hums with soft, silky sounds. A medley of the blueprinted vendors is superimposed on a filmed background of a community of houses built of scraps, and an animated image of the individual cart parts come together to create a compounded image of the cart and its proprietor. Morales describes this as a “looping, mutating video projection.” Though interesting, it is almost boring and too abstract after a short while.In the last segment, Morales joins the blueprints and the clay models together with a popular airbrushing technique used often in Mexican art. What is most magnificent about the final three works is how natural they appear – the vendors are accurately detailed down to the bootlegged Air Jordans on their feet and the baseball caps on their heads. You have seen these vendors before; they trudge up and down Revolucion hoping they will make enough from their products to feed their families.These people embody the idea that one man’s trash truly is another man’s treasure. This concept is successfully communicated to all those who visit Morales’ exhibit. The word “Cerca” means something nearby or closer, and Morales wants just that – to bring a world which he is directly acquainted with closer to the American public.

The Cerca series will be featured at downtown’s Museum of Contemporary Art until Nov. 14. Admission to the exhibit is free. For more information visit www.mcasd.org.