Apopka Murals hosted a signing event at Hall’s on Fifth to celebrate their three newest murals on Saturday. 

“I appreciate all you guys for coming,” Apopka Murals founder Luis Rivera said. “It really is not about us. It really is about them getting their due and curating something that’s amazing.” 

Artists Savannah Vargas, Jordan Jones, and Michael “Maik” Delgado signed prints of their murals in the back patio of Hall’s on Fifth before signing the originals with their Instagram handles in white paint. The murals now adorn the southern wall of the Central Florida Tang Soo Do building at 72 E Main Street and are inspired by Apopka’s indoor foliage history, resident peacocks, and Lake Apopka, respectively.  

Vargas and Delgado started painting their murals at around 9 p.m. on Sept. 17, with Jones starting later. When The Apopka Chief interviewed Vargas and Delgado that night, the artists were projecting digital versions of their art onto the blank walls for tracing. 

“The art style that I’m doing is really like a stained glass mosaic kind of thing — like very old-fashioned, traditional — and that’s kind of what I think of when I think of Apopka, you know,” Vargas, an Apopka native, said as she outlined orange trees for her indoor foliage mural. “It’s like old-fashioned, but beautiful.” 

Vargas said her conception of Apopka’s “family-oriented” atmosphere stems from several generations of her family living in the city. Although she taught herself art, her father was the one who introduced her work to Rivera. 

“He’s a client of Luis at his barber shop, Downtown Barbers,” Vargas said. “He was talking with him — this was like a year or two ago — he was saying, ‘Oh, my daughter’s an artist, if you’re looking for anyone to work with you.’” 

Since then, Vargas has worked for Rivera on a few projects, including a mural at Phillis Wheatley Elementary.  

Rivera wanted Jones to paint a peacock mural after he saw two of Jones’ chalk drawings of the bird — one at Apopka City Hall and another in Daytona Beach.  

“It’s just kind of been in the works for about a year and a half — just an idea we’ve had, and I told him I’d be interested in doing it,” Jones said in a phone interview. “He said once he found a wall and some money, he’ll let me know — and yeah, he found a wall.” 

Those who visit the mural will find “Apopka” spelled out in the peacock’s feathers. But Jones also said the placement of the mural itself bears great significance to him. 

“I remember my first time doing a meeting for another art call,” Jones said. “I was at City Hall, and there were like three peacocks right in front of the door when I walked in, and I just thought it was so cool that they were out there….[It’s] special that I could do a mural of that right across the street of where that happened.” 

Delgado’s Lake Apopka mural features a silhouette of a man fishing from a dock underneath an orange, pink and purple sky. He brings five years of tattoo artistry and several previous collaborations with Rivera to his new mural, which he said might be his favorite Apopka Murals project thus far. 

“I’ve done a lot of walls, but for schools and stuff like that,” Delgado said. “This is my first one for the public to see. So I’m kind of excited for it, a little bit nervous.” 

The Lake Apopka mural is only the beginning of Delgado’s public wall painting journey. 

“[I’m] trying to get rid of boring walls in Apopka one wall at a time,” he said. 

Delgado will also be involved in Apopka Murals’ next project — the western wall of Domino’s Pizza on 2 E Main Street. Rivera briefly mentioned the project at the signing event, saying he is waiting for all the artwork to be finalized and that the mural will involve 12 artists. 

Rivera said he loves giving the Apopka Murals artists a platform to showcase their talents and watching them receive acclamation. 

“I don’t have to get anything,” Rivera said. “My heart is good. My soul is filled. You know, I think that’s all I want in life…for my heart to be fulfilled, my soul to be good and clean.” 

To view more of the artists’ work, follow Vargas on Instagram at @vees._.art, Jones at @jj_the_artist and Delgado at @_mjvdl.