SAN ANTONIO — Mary Agnes Rodriguez’s voice may not be loud, sonically, but it has been heard loudly around the world through her art. On San Antonio’s West Side, inside a historically-preserved casita (house), there is a self portrait of the artist with a chain around her neck, commemoriating her participation at a protest in 2002. 

“Awareness, bringing out the truth. I think that's one way I started developing what I wanted to say in my art,” Rodriguez said, pointing to a larger canvas of the protest. 

She put so many details in this work that she even added an actual piece of rubble of the building she and many other West Siders were protecting 19 years ago— La Gloria. 

She didn’t always have this voice, but her talent was there. Rodriguez was influenced at a very young age growing up on the West Side — her mother was a seamstress and she loved to read comics. 

“When I was about 8 years old, I had drawn a tree with a nest and a cat. Why I put the cat, I don’t know,” Rodriguez said laughing. 

In her later years she started submitting her artwork to the El Placazo Newspaper, a publication run by non-profit art organization San Anto Cultural Arts. From there, Rodriguez became the lead artist for multiple murals that illustrated the culture and issues that plague this barrio. 

“It was exciting, I got tired, but at the end it was worth it,” Rodriguez said. 

In September, 2014, Rodriguez had to change the way she approached making her art, not for any stylistic change, but because her foot was amputated due to diabetes. 

“But it still hasn’t stopped me,” Rodriguez said. 

It didn’t stop her from helping San Anto Cultural Arts from painting its 50th mural, "Poder del Muralismo: Cuentos de Arte," six years ago. It surely hasn’t prevented her from making clay art at Mujer Artes Clay Cooperative, an adobe space in the heart of the West Side where she spends most of her time.

“I’m honored to work with a lot of talented ladies there, the women, the mujeres,” Rodriguez said. “I like working here. I like the atmosphere.” 

Even when she’s not sculpting clay art or painting on a wall or canvas, she’s still doing art, capturing photos on her cellphone — from dead leaves to a fully-bloomed flower — she finds the beauty in everything. 

She’s still using the voice she developed through art to shine a light on social issues, even ones that don’t affect her. There was a mural titled "Breaking the Cycle" that Rodriguez painted and led in 2002. She recalled a mother from the community telling her how she takes her daughter to the mural. They thanked Rodriguez for raising awreness of teen domestic violence with her art. 

“So I think it is making a difference at least one person at a time,” Rodriguez said. 

It’s safe to say that this Chicana is making a difference. Before she left the casita with her paintings, she read the canvas. 

“Art is work, art is vida,” Rodriguez said.