In the 26 years that artist Ana Vazquez has lived four blocks from the huge Parque Metropolitano, a lot has changed. But one thing that has stayed the same almost all that time is that homeless animals, mostly cats, keep finding their way to the door of the house she shares with her husband and two children. And she keeps painting them.
“A lot of people abandon animals in the park,” says the short, 50-ish artist, with a twinkling smile and plump cheeks that bring to mind ... well, a cat. “22 years ago, I opened the door and a little ball of fur ran in. I threw him out three times but he kept returning, so finally I kept him. That was Michos.”
“In those days, it was so quiet here that the singing of the swallows woke me up! My garden was open to the street [now it is closed to keep her pets safely confined] so one day a wild cat came in and had kittens in the laundry. She left one day with all the kittens except one. That was Negrita. She lived here 12 years.”
These days Vazquez has more stories than she has animals, and the tally of both is considerable. She now houses ten cats and just found a home for a white German shepherd.“She interviews people who want to adopt the animals,” said her sister Elena Vazquez. “She asks them ‘Do you have a big garden?’ and questions like that. She is so particular!”
“I get all my animals neutered,” Ana emphasized. “None of them have had babies here. And I take care of their ailments, usually with homeopathy.”
As interesting as the story of animal adoptions is the story of Ana’s artistic endeavors. Her love of animals appears to be something in her blood and spirit. She recalls that, as a girl of three, she was fascinated with watching her grandmother paint. And on her studio wall, which includes her paintings, pastels and even batiks, done in a gamut of styles from abstract a la Peter Max to feathery impressionism, one stands out as different — an old painting done by her father. Its subject is two kittens.
But animals are not Vazquez’s sole subject. “I am also very much into angels,” she said, showing a somewhat abstract painting that she said depicts herself and her guardian angel. “I see paintings in dreams, already completed” she said. “When I wake up, I try to paint it.”
But she often works in a different manner. “Almost always, I don’t know what I will paint. I just begin and it comes out on its own. I use my taste as a guide. I might begin with something and I just don’t like it, so I have to change a color or a line. Then suddenly it takes a new turn, maybe the perspective changes, and I like it.
“I don’t know if other artists work like that,” she added. “When I’ve been in classes, I saw that other artists don’t seem to.”
Vazquez is bothered nowadays by rheumatoid arthritis, which keeps her from painting, but is hopeful about a natural regimen she is trying. But she is still active, with the help of her children, in local animal rescue groups that operate informally via the Internet.
“There are Facebook pages I use a lot: Angel Camino Patitos de Ayuda, Adopta Guadalajara, Jack y Junior. Typically, someone sends a message on Twitter — there’s an injured dog on Lopez Mateos. People see it and immediately go out to rescue the animal.”
“My own Facebook page, Ana I Vazquez, has my paintings and pastels.” Vazquez has shown her work from time to time, including at Galeria Di Paola in Ajijic.