Hey there! I've loved your art for a long time, I try to reblog ur content whenever I see it! I really love your colors and composition and just the world you've created! I have a question about the possible symbolism you use when you draw your ice with orange trees or oranges in general? I've noticed that's a theme! Thank you for your time!!
hi!! first of all thank you so much… i always like to see what you tag those reblogs with :’’) second of all there is a bit of symbolism with the oranges/orange trees!Â
to start with, both weary exile/bright heart (webh) and nighthawks grapple with personal and cultural identities. nick is coded as a trans man in webh, he IS a trans man in nighthawks, tua is nonbinary/an approximation of that concept in both, etc. the other side of things is that tua is mixtec/black, and in nighthawks, nick is colombian-american, both of them living in the usa as second generation. so there’s a theme of being “in the middle”, of feeling too x, y, or z to belong, that runs through all of it.
a lot of those notes - nick’s in particular - r from personal experience. one thing that’s kind of the underpinnings of nighthawks specifically is my earliest memories of meeting my abuelita as a kid. her house was super dated, it was in an old neighborhood in east bay, and she had this really really tiny backyard where she had all these lemon and orange trees. growing up and hearing stories from other latinos, the orange tree just became this symbol to me of bringing your identity with you, even if you keep it in the back yard.
for nick and tua, the orange tree represents not only their similar struggles, but also their mirrored attempts at making a home for themselves. tua’s home in nighthawks even resembles my abuelitas! so it started as a little thing that heralded my own experiences as someone who tries to understand the context of their identity in this country and became a sort of staple for the nighthawks story :)