Border Crosser by Charles Glaubitz
"Border Crosser is a visual exploration of life at the threshold—between Tijuana and San Diego, legality and illegality, survival and symbolism. Created in 2003–2004, this drawing series captures the surreal, hybrid reality of the border: a space where cultures collide, identities blur, and daily existence is steeped in irony, resilience, and contradiction.
Through the figure of El Niño Burro, a childlike character dressed like a painted donkey, Glaubitz channels the innocence, absurdity, and grit of the borderlands. The drawings weave together iconography both sacred and commercial, depicting fire-breathers at intersections, helicopters overhead, saints blessing undocumented workers, and a massive wall slicing through the landscape.
Rendered in sharp, expressive lines, the work functions as a new folklore—a metaphorical mirror of Tijuana’s chaotic beauty and its entanglement with American capitalism. Border Crosser is not just a series of drawings; it’s a mythic map of a city in flux, constantly redefining itself through the act of crossing."
32 pages, approx. 8.5" x11", full color, saddle-stitched. Self-published by Charles, 2025 (originally 2018).
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