American Glory

In August 2024, the artist completed his second art residency at the Gullkistan Center for Creativity in Laugarvatn, Iceland. The following month, Harroff was awarded a major Illinois Arts Council Creative Catalyst Grant to produce a 4-book hardback series of prints featuring morning glory flowers from the artist’s Illinois home. His floral artwork is part of major museum collections and has been featured on St. Louis television several times. Harroff recollects, “I have precious childhood memories of Mom’s rows of heart-shaped vines growing up the side of our garage, creating a bouquet of Heavenly Blues against the clear northern Indiana sky. There is an inner glow to a glory which acts as a beacon to pollinators, but is also reminiscent of stars glowing at night. The life cycle of the morning glory symbolizes our lives; each of us, vine-tied together, emerge as uniquely created beings who flower for a brief moment and are then gone.” The artist decided to create vector drawings for these new botanical images. Each book represents a specific time in the day-long life of a morning glory: Daybreak Glory / i am a morning glory / American Glory / Twilight Glory “I was tired when we arrived at our 2024 Icelandic art residency because of the divisive pre-election stories repeatedly broadcast by the media. I began creating prints in red, white and blue, entitled American Glory, symbolizing the red vs. blue political chasm back home. When an artist places complementary colors of the same value together, like red and blue, a visual tension is created. To me, this is emblematic of the constant stress underlying nearly every interaction in American society today.”