Robert Vargas honors Fernando Valenzuela with a mural on the Día de Muertos altar

Robert Vargas had barely completed his first day of work on a Boyle Heights mural honoring Fernando Valenzuela Tuesday night when he heard the news that the beloved Dodgers pitcher had died at age 63.

“I still had my harness on,” Vargas said early Wednesday. “I wasn’t very far away (from the mural). After I left there, I was having dinner so I returned to the wall just to feel connected to the space that I have already built a relationship with as I'm in the process of painting this.

“Now it takes on even greater meaning. It’s still a celebration of a remarkable life, but it’s now also becoming an altar.”

The Los Angeles-based artist learned this immediately when he returned to his workplace in an apartment building a block west of Mariachi Plaza.

“There were news crews already there,” he said. “And there were even friends who came over with marigolds, the flowers for the Day of the Dead altars.”

Hailing from a small town in Mexico, Valenzuela became an MLB sensation with the Dodgers in 1981, sparking the cultural phenomenon known as “Fernandomania” and helping LA defeat the New York Yankees in the World Series.

“I was a kid when this all happened, and I just know that he is someone who inspires not just Latin American culture, but many cultures,” said Vargas, whose mural is titled “Fernando Mania Forever.” “He’s just an inspirational figure who accomplished amazing things no matter where he came from.”

Valenzuela had been a member of the Dodgers broadcast team since 2003 and was not seen on the Spanish-language broadcasts toward the end of the regular season. On October 2, the Dodgers announced that Valenzuela had “stepped away from the Dodger broadcast booth for the remainder of this year to focus on his health.”

In a video filmed Tuesday night at the site of the future mural and later posted to his Instagram Stories, an emotional Vargas struggled to find words to express what he felt about the death of one for him and so many others like him important personality.

“I was really hoping that he would get out of his situation,” Vargas told The Times on Wednesday. “I really expected him to see (the mural). I just feel like a part of my childhood has disappeared.”

He added: “I just put all the emotions into this wall.”

Vargas said he came up with the idea of ​​a Valenzuela mural in Boyle Heights earlier this year when he painted a mural of current Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani on the side of the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo. Located just over a mile apart, the two murals are connected by the 1st Street Bridge and the stories of the players and the communities they represent.

Artist Robert Vargas stands in front of the Boyle Heights building where he is painting a mural honoring Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela.

(Chuck Schilken/Los Angeles Times)

“It's my way of promoting and advocating for unity and representation so that these communities can see heroes that look like them,” Vargas said. “At the same time, under the Dodgers umbrella, the whole city can get behind it because it’s about moving the collective forward, which is truly unity.”

The Ohtani mural is larger than life, to say the least, and Vargas has similar plans for his Valenzuela tribute. Since the wall is made up of three panels, Vargas will paint three separate images of Valenzuela pitching to create an overall mural that he estimates will be more than 50 feet tall and 70 feet wide.

“Now the 1st Street Bridge is metaphorically the Unity Bridge because these two murals face and are opposite each other,” Vargas said. “If you are on the 1st Street Bridge and look in either direction, you can see both murals.”

The unveiling will take place on November 1, a date Vargas originally chose because it is Valenzuela's birthday and falls on Día de Muertos. It also happens that Game 6 of the Dodgers-Yankees World Series, if necessary, will take place at Dodger Stadium that evening.

That doesn't leave Vargas much time to finish the piece, especially considering he does all of the painting.

“I'm painting it completely freehand,” said Vargas, who plans to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day until it's finished. “My process is no grids, no projections, all with a brush, so completely free form. But when you paint with passion and intention for the common good and represent the community here, it’s like a stream of consciousness.”

Early Wednesday, Vargas said he hoped to have nearly a third of the mural completed by the end of the day, explaining that Valenzuela's death “only reinforces its importance.”

“I see it now in a way that is healing — not just for myself, but I actually believe it gives the city that image,” Vargas said.

Vargas invites the public to be on hand after 1 p.m. Wednesday to help make fabric marigolds and make the mural the “biggest ofrenda ever.”

“I'm going to put these symbolic marigolds around the building on the surface of the wall like you would see on a Day of the Dead altarpiece,” Vargas said. “And that will frame the wall or surface while I paint the inside of it with the original design idea. It will be something that will be removed at some point. People can come and help with the construction. I think this will also be a form of healing for people.”