Nekisha Durrett, the mixed media artist behind the Obama Presidential Center’s “Hem of Heaven,” grounds her work in Black life and labor. As a native Washingtonian, she knows all too well the history that is erased and destroyed, and yet her own labor is evidence that all hope is not lost.
“I didn’t make a decision to make another Harriet Tubman piece out of the blue. It was like it was for this very specific site. And one of the themes of the museum is [built to] bring hope home or bring hope back to your community,” Durrett said.
Before her 24-foot work was one of the final pieces installed at the historic center in Chicago, Durrett had a long career dedicated to highlighting the Black experience. She is recognized for her artwork that includes “I Love You Miss Celie” (2015), a digital drawing installed on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Northwest D.C., “Queen City” (2023), “Break Water” (2025) and “Don’t Forget to Remember (Me)” (2025). Each piece pushes the boundaries of how the lives of Black Americans are told and how one can come to fully understand a story never told before. A skill she credits to having developed as a young child.
“What I started to notice [is] that I would get these art projects in class and I would kind of push it to another level, like I would go beyond what the assignment was, which didn’t always please my teachers,” Durrett said.
She recalls a fifth grade art project that required students to create candles using milk cartons and plaster. When the plaster finally set, one could peel off the carton, and stuff fell onto the candle. However, young Durrett proceeded to carve holiday designs with a pair of scissors and wash the designs with watercolor paint.
“My teacher takes it to the front of the class, she holds it up and [says] ‘I don’t like this.’ and puts it down,” Durrett told The Informer. “I was just kind of moving a little differently than everybody else, and everybody else kind of stopped drawing and painting, and I kept doing it and trying to get better at it.”
The lifelong creative was heavily supported by her parents, John and Georgetta Durrett, to pursue art. As a young person, her mother would buy Durrett art books, and her father’s work as an engineer planted the seed of belief that she could make anything.
That kind of support led Durrett to study the arts from high school through her postgraduate education, and eventually become an educator and full-time artist whose work is inspired by the lives of others.
“My parents [said], ‘Once you’re finished with college [and] if you don’t get work as an artist full time, just make sure that whatever work that you do is somehow connected to what you love,’ which was great advice,” Durrett said.
“Hem of Heaven” offers guests of the Obama Center a glimpse into past resistance that connects its audience to remain resilient in the present.
“So many threads went into the planning of the Underground Railroad stops, the Black Moses. When I look at that shawl, I see that it protected her from the elements,” said Dr. Sheryl Guthrie Lucas Giles, a member of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC).
The massive artwork, inspired by Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, furthers Durrett’s goal of intentionality through her artistry.
“It just makes me even more intentional in the work that I’m making and the sites that I engage with,” Durrett said. “Saying maybe [or] saying no to certain projects so that I can say yes to these projects.”
Pursuing a Passion
Based on the recommendation of a family friend who also saw the budding artist’s potential, Durrett applied and attended D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of Arts from 1991-1996, where she and her parents first realized that her talent could lead to many future opportunities.
In 1998, she furthered her education by earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York and later a master’s degree in photography from the University of Michigan in 2000.
“When I was an undergrad, I just tried to learn everything that I could; graphic design, typography, sculpture, drawing and painting, even film,” Durrett said. “A lot of times my work starts with some photographs that I found and an archive. Oftentimes it is the springboard into these larger projects.”
While working as a full-time artist did not feel like the most financially sound decision for the young Durrett, her parents encouraged her to make sure she stayed connected to what she loved.
In 2001, she went on to manage the art bank program for D.C.’s Commission on the Arts & Humanities, which highlights local visual artists’ work on display within D.C. government buildings.
After that, she spent a decade working across various departments of the Smithsonian Institution. Yet, her north star to becoming a full-time artist had just begun.
Up until 2017, most of Durrett’s work stayed local, but she saw the opportunity to go beyond the District with the help of a longtime friend, Hank Willis Thomas. Together, they constructed a piece for the Liberty City and Miami-Dade County community: “I See Myself in You,” which challenged Durrett to utilize a variety of techniques to pay homage to the community’s cultural heritage and African American beach bathers.
“This moment [is] when I realized that all of these skill sets that I acquired over the years, whether it be in school [or] in jobs that I had working for museums,” Durrett said, “all of these skill sets could live under one tent and make really interesting work that is kind of coming from a unique perspective and voice.”
‘Valuing the Voices … to Make You Who You Are’
As Durrett’s work expanded beyond D.C., longtime supporter and art collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz — who founded Duke Ellington School of the Arts — questioned each of the artist’s pieces. She wondered if Durrett had found her own story.
“Even though she was a great supporter of my work, she just felt like there was something that just wasn’t quite there yet or clicking yet,” Durrett told The Informer. “And she was like, ‘You know, Nekisha, what’s your story?’”
She found the answer to that question at an art residency connecting more with the writers than the visual artists. It was through her conversations that she came to understand the storytelling aspect of art just by discussing her own life and family history. The value of the past was critical to those she wished to honor in the present.
“Paying attention to and valuing these voices that have lent themselves to your life and make you who you are,” Durrett said, “I had this desire to pay more attention to that and to put more value on it.”
Later on, these lessons proved useful during her time as an educator at her Northwest alma mater, Duke Ellington School of Arts, and the 2023 public sculpture “Queen City” in Arlington, Virginia.
The sculpture confronts the unknown history of the Black-owned land that was seized by the federal government to build the Pentagon. “Queen City” was crafted to honor the 903 residents who were displaced and the many communities today bonded by the same story.
“I’m not a historian, I’m not an archivist,” the artist told The Informer. “I’m just a curious person who wants to know more and who is really looking in those spaces of absence and knowing that there actually is something there to be discovered and bringing that information forward.”
Obama Center, ‘Hem of Heaven’ Offers Hope
This past June, the 24-foot-tall ceramic “Hem of Heaven” wowed visitors at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. The piece was inspired by Tubman’s shawl and Douglass’ famous 1868 letter calling the midnight sky and silent stars witnesses to her heroic devotion to freedom.
For the artwork to scale from vision to standing tall in the South Side of Chicago, Durrett assembled a team of six ceramicists: Camille Beckles, Ricky Blanding, Rich Brown, Jun Mabuchi, Nala Turner and V Walton.
“You see all of these blues, blacks, purples and turquoise, and each of these individual artists bringing themselves into this work and having in their own minds the color of the midnight sky,” Durrett continued, “and together they make this Harriet Tubman’s shawl.”
The piece reflects the many lives Tubman’s work impacted while emphasizing the importance of hope in today’s society. For Durrett, she couldn’t believe in the idea of hope while working on the piece.
“I felt embarrassed to talk about hope in recent months, like in the past year or so,” Durrett told The Informer.
During her design process for the “Hem of Heaven,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) began to occupy D.C., and residents of her neighborhood came together to find ways to assist immigrant communities. Durrett’s contribution included driving two little girls of mixed status to and from school.
The collective effort in Durrett’s District neighborhood inspired the hope that she hopes to instill in everyone who sees the artwork at the Obama Center.
“Going to the dedication, hearing the Obamas speak in person, walking through the museum, it really reinvigorates your sense of hope, enlivens it and reactivates it,” Durrett explained.
The museum’s story is split into four floors, highlighting former President Barack Obama and his family’s early life– from his presidential campaign to the many contributions from ordinary people that made his barrier-breaking presidency possible.
Jennifer Grondzik and her husband traveled from West Michigan with their young son James, so that he could learn about the former president, a man she describes as inspirational and led with dignity. On the ‘Working for the Common Good’ floor, Grondzik and her son got to learn about those who were an extension of that dignified leadership.
“I’m learning about the individuals who are listed here in Imagine Your Impact. James and I, we’ve been reading their stories, so that he, too, can feel connected to individuals in the community, and how they can take that small step into making an impact,” Grondzik said.
Towards the end of the tour, visitors can make their way to the lower level and see the “Hem of Heaven” from the ground up. Lucas Giles said she was interested in the artwork as it honors one of the organization’s founding members.
“Harriet Tubman demonstrated that [fight for equality] with the many folks that she saved in her fight,” Lucas Giles told The Informer. “So to look at her shawl and to see all the intricate pieces symbolized to me that there was so much to her journey.”
Reflecting on the inspiration gleaned from the Obama Center, along with her work in the NACWC, Lucas Giles emphasized the importance of learning, sharing and uplifting Black history and narratives.
“We have to know our history. We have to celebrate our history. We have to tell our history,” she continued. “This is an important visual of our history. But we need the message to be broader.”
While Durrett is happy “Hem of Heaven” serves as a source of beauty, information and inspiration for guests, she also hopes it encourages all people to tap into their personal talents to ignite hope and promote positive change.
“We all have a light inside of us,” Durrett said. “We have so much [more] power together than we do individually.”
