Aylette Jenness was born in NYC in 1934. Her mother, Shelby Shackelford was a painter of some note and her father a physicist. The family moved to Baltimore in the 40s when her father became a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Jenness attended Pratt Institute and later the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to study sculpture. After teaching art at the elementary school level and working in day care she returned to school and received a masters degree in education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
In the 1960s Aylette lived in the Arctic and Nigeria with her husband, Jonathan Jenness, an anthropologist, and their two young children, Kirik and Evan. She photographed their time there, and from their experiences wrote several books. From Alaska, came Gussuk Boy, Dwellers of the Tundra, and In Two Worlds (with Alice Rivers), from Nigeria, Along the Niger River and now this volume, Sometime a Clear Light.
Aylette’s photographs of Nigeria, which capture a lost way of life, are now archived at the National Museum of African Art in the Smithsonian Institution, which says: “Jenness communicates two themes that have guided her photography: her unique female perspective and a drive to educate others about diversity. With these ideas in mind, Jenness has produced a photographic legacy of intimate depictions of peoples from such varied places as Alaska and Africa.”
She later worked at the Boston Children’s Museum for 25 years as a cultural developer of exhibitions, public programs, curricula, festivals, and workshops for teachers. Several books resulted, including The Kid’s Bridge, and Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love. She also worked with Lisa Kroeber in Guatemala to produce A Life of Their Own: An Indian Family in Latin America.
Now living on Cape Cod with her cat Purrsia, Aylette is navigating a new world as she is losing her vision to macular degeneration. She embraces the light streaming in through her windows reflecting off the waters of the bay and feels grateful for each new morning that she is given.
