Juli McKenna Kearns

@idyllopus

No Ai. Author/artist/playwright (twas)/cinema analyses. Dem Socialist. She/her. Spouse-Martin is a musician/engineer/producer. Child-Aaron is a filmmaker/artist. Atlanta GA. Plutonium-enriched childhood in WA. My website:

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Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 21d

Canal, Scottsdale-Phoenix, Arizona, 2008, processed 2026 Can't promise compression isn't going to muck up the grain on this one. #blackandwhitephotography #photography

View from one of the pedestrian bridges looking down the canal not at a picturesque scene but infrastructure, electrical pylons and such on the left, while the right is walled in with a bank of evergreen trees all of the same size.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 21d

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, 2007, processed 2022 Aaron running up to the Earth Lodge. One can see its entrance on the left. When we visited it was a State Park. Recently expanded, it has become a National Park. #blackandwhitephotography #photography

Bridge and long path through grassy plain up to the Earth Lodge at the top of a hill, pockets of woodland on either side.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 23d

1 - I wanted to reply to Ian McQue with my having the same "Made with AI" problem with one of my posts on Instagram, but I can't reply so I'm posting here instead. This is an image I posted on Instagram 2 months ago and it received a "Made with AI" in "About this post". I know the image's...

Crop from an old photo of a tire I was curious about.

Take a look at that tire! I've tried posting on FB and Bluesky about it and am getting no responses. I've cropped this from an extended-family photo, the car would have been used in Kay County, Oklahoma and Wyoming. I'm trying to figure out what's going on, having scoured the internet and newspapers and coming up with nothing. The car is 1930s, and the right tire was a type with normal tread. This left one is instead artistic. I find nothing like it anywhere. It is certainly regrooved, and that it's an artistic regrooving of concentric waves forming an S pattern is wild. I believe the photo is from the early- to mid-1940s and that this probably has to do with the rubber shortage during WWII. Has anyone heard of artistic regrooving? Has anyone seen it? The family was native, mixed-Kaw/Kansa from the Kay County, Oklahoma reserve, and I was wondering if this was perhaps done by an indigenous artist. Not necessarily Kaw, could have been Osage or any of the other neighboring tribes (even not neighboring, the family had ties all over the state). Or it could have been the work of someone who wasn't indigenous. I've no idea. I'm simply fascinated by this tire and am hoping to hear of anyone who has tales of artistic regroovings circa 1940s. This seems very idiosyncratic or else I'd have come upon at least one picture or story about such. The person who did the regrooving obviously knew what they were doing

Screenshot from Instagram showing the post labeled as "Made with AI".

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 25d

Arizona, 2008, processed 2026 Sometimes it takes years for me to work on a photo to get it how I like it. Try it and not be satisfied. Let it sit. Try again and not be satisfied. Try again and finally get it.

Arizona hills low in the photo, then a sea of numerous small clouds viewed half-behind and just above them, then deep bue sky above.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 25d

Arizona, 2008, processed 2026. I usually go for black and white, and began with a black and white version of this, which wasn't bad, but I ended up moving over to color as with this one I hated losing all the color on that hill. #photography #arizona #colorphotography #cactus #mountains

Soft color of Arizona hills dotted with cactus and backed by mountains beyond.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· 28d

Bathtub Mannequin Antique Store Window, 2016 Taken in Augusta, GA on Broad St. #photography #mannequin #bubbles #bathtub #bathing #shopwindow #storewineow

In the foreground an exterior window frame joining two store windows through which can be seen, in soft grainy focus, a blond mannequin luxuriating in a bathtub full of shimmering bubbles.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jul 13

Udo Kier on "Dark Winds" was a surprise, like he was suddenly back from the dead. RIP. In the 1st episode of this season I called it. "We've got a Karl May 'Winnetou' subplot!" For those who don't know about Karl May, I did a very brief intro in 2024. idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fi...

Screengrab from "Winnetou, The Last Shot" of a man dressed as an Indian and a white man, the "Indian" leaning back into the arm of the white man that is supporting him. Text above reads "On Karl May's Westerns". Link in the post to the article.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jul 6

New and thoroughly inconsequential post on my website about how both Rosa Praunheim and Stanley Kubrick used the painting "Tina" in 1971, Praunheim in the wonderful "Die Bettwurst" and Kubrick in "A Clockwork Orange". idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fi... #stanleykubrick #rosapraunheim

Close-up of the painting "Tina" by Joseph Henry Lynch, a woman, intended to be seen as mysterious, gazes directly at the viewer.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jul 4

Comparing the opening of William Wellman's 1943 "The Ox-Bow Incident" with his 1948 "Yellow Sky". Note Harry Morgan is in both films, standing to the screen right in the upper-right images. I discuss in "From The Tempest to Yellow Sky" idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fi... #filmsky #moviesky

The Ox-Bow Incident opening

Upper left - Gil (Henry Fonda) and Art (Harry Morgan) ride up to the saloon
Middle left - They are followed into the saloon by a drunk who was standing on the porch
Lower left - The interior of the saloon
Upper right - Gil and Art at the bar looking up at the image above and behind it
Middle right - The painting of the woman in repose with a man looking on her through a curtained doorway beyond

Yellow Sky opening

Upper left - Stretch (Gregory Peck) rides up to the saloon with his gang
Middle left - They are followed into the saloon by a drunk who was standing on the porch
Lower left - The interior of the saloon
Upper right - Dude (Richard Widmark), Lengthy (John Russell), and Half Pint (Harry Morgan) look up at a painting above and behind the bar
Middle right - The painting of the woman tied to a rearing horse

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jul 3

Grand Canyon Tourists, 2006. I processed both black-and-white and color rather than choose one over the other as they are nice in each their own way. #photography #blackandwhitephotography #monochromaticphotography #grandcanyon

Two souls standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. The woman in white jacket and black skirt and white stockings and shoes, photographs the view. The man beside her in denim and a black-and-white spotted fashion backpack and a white hoodie under his denim jacket stands beside her staring into the distance. I loved being able to grab a shot of this pair.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jul 2

New. My relatively brief analysis of William Wellman's 1948 film "Yellow Sky", which I became interested in when I read it was a western based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest". It's a bit of a journey that also looks at his "The Ox-Bow Incident". idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fi...

A view of the salt flats of Death Valley from William Wellman's film "Yellow Sky".

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 27

Autumn Grass and Pool, Carter Presidential Center, 2014 #carterpresidentialcenter #pool #atlantaphotography

A blue pool at the top of the photo borders fading green grass.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 27

Piedmont Park Lake, Atlanta, 2010 #photography #monochromephotography #blackandwhitephotography

Fallen leaves lining the rim of Piedmont Park lake.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 26

From the 1943 film, "The Ox Bow Incident". Just finished reading most of the book, trying to get a more secure handle on certain aspects of the film. Wish it had identified where Donald Martin was from, we just know he had been in California.

The posse gathers under the long arched branch of a dark skeletal tree, the light-colored horse of the former southern cavalry officer standing out in the center.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 24

How to Perform an Autopsy Chapter 12 idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/ht...

Intro image for Chapter Twelve shows a girl playing violin, a locker, a state hospital, an old snapshot of girls before camp bunkbeds

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 24

Atlanta Midtown iPhone with post processing, 2011 #blackandwhitephotography #black&whitephotography #bnwphotography #midtownatlanta #atlantaphotography #fog

Skyscrapers in Midtown Atlanta obscured by fog.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 24

A photo I'd held in reserve for a number of years to eventually work on. Viewing Jasper John's "Flag". A very complex relationship with the flag here, for me, always has been. Brief description in ALT. Examining the Flag, processed 2026

A photo I'd held in reserve to eventually work on. Viewing Jasper John's "Flag". A very complex relationship with the flag here, for me, always has been. Jasper Johns' "Flag", from 1954-1955, is from the McCarthy era. I've another photo of a flag flying that I still meditate on how to approach it. A flag in a frame becomes an object for ruminating upon rather than an old glory call for a nationalistic pledge. There's a lot of bad history in that flag, and there's also a lot of history of people struggling to make it a flag that would actually signify the realization of the promise of equal rights and equitability.

Examining the Flag, processed 2026. Shows several individuals (in this case three men and a child) standing before the flat at MOMA, their backs turned to the camera except for the child who is looking away from the flag.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 18

The End of Amazement Digital painting 40 by 34.4 inches Reference model via Skydancer Stock This was originally done, in 2019, with the model in the nude, but in 2026 I did an updated version in which I added clothing. The censored version.

A woman, with arms raised, stands before a striped wall, beside a low table on which is set a video screen on which is an image of a checkered room in which a ball is falling off a pillar, the subtitle being "No more amazement".

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 17

That's me with a shadow puppet prop from my play "Zurama" (1989). Have another couple of photos of me from the rear wrangling and painting other props into being. The only reason I have a few photos of it is because the stage manager, Molly Lay (such a nice and hard-working individual), one day...

Woman (me) sitting on a green folding chair, examining a puppet that is pictured from the rear.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 15

Oh, poor Melania. One of the commentators of the UFC fight, when she steps into the blood-speckled octagon with Trump to meet the winner, calls her "the First Lady Ivanka".

Melania Trump and the little birthday boy step into the octagon to meet the winner.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 13

Trump's crew covering up the removal of his name from the Kennedy Center with tarp.

Blue and white striped tarp being set up to cover the scaffold supporting the workers removing Trump's name from the Kennedy center.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 12

Outside Bellevue, Texas, 2008, Processed 2021 #photography #blackandwhitephotography #monochromephotography #railroad #texas

Across the flat plain a RR track runs, attendant with RR signal lights and utility poles.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 9

1955 Chrysler (Ghia) Streamline X "Gilda" Dream Cars Exhibit at the High Museum of Art 2014 iPhone processed 2026 #photography #cars #dreamcars #highmuseumofart

1955 Chrysler (Ghia) Streamline X "Gilda" viewed from the front left side. A long and slender car

1955 Chrysler (Ghia) Streamline X "Gilda". Viewed from the "rocket" styling rear with huge fins.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 5

I was startled to find Fassbinder slyly referencing Kubrick's "Lolita" in his first two films he made after being rejected by the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/fi...

The image is just the lead paragraphs for my article.

The article is on "The City Tramp" and "A Little Chaos" made the same year. The films complement one another, and 21-y-o Fassbinder gives commentary via props, clueing one initially that he's doing this by having his second film reference the first. If one hasn't seen the first film one will be unaware of the reference. Finally he very unobtrusively references Kubrick's "Lolita" via the "Elvira" painting that is used in it, coupling this with the scene opening with a woman painting her fingernails, for in "Lolita" the "Elvira" painting appeared in the scene in which Humbert paints Lolita's toenails. I've done my best to lay out the case for this in the linked article on it. I was astonished. I'd not expected a 21-y-o Fassbinder to be referencing Kubrick.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 5

Dead Horse Ranch State Park Taken 2006, processed 2015 #photography #blackandwhitephotography #trees #statepark #arizona

Center of the photo is a tree with abbreviated twisted limbs that leans toward the left, limbs from other trees entering the photo from its borders.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 5

1) This is a personal family photo. The jury is out but I believe the woman on the screen right dressed in WWI military garb is a daughter of my 2nd great-grandaunt, living on the Osage Reserve in OK. In 1917-1919 she was married to a man who served with the Company D 111th Ammunition Train...

An old photo of a woman wearing a WWI uniform but with women' shoes, standing outside, arm clasped with another individual. It is winter.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· Jun 2

Grand Canyon Tourist with Flying Bird Jacket, 2007 The Grand Canyon and its Tourists Series Digital painting with autumn 2006 photo by artist for reference 19.7 by 31 inches

Two women and a child, dressed in winter clothing, stand on a rim of the Grand Canyon. The individuals are photo-realistic based on one of my photos, the canyon is not.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· May 30

Road to Brasstown Bald, 2014 I didn't except much from the photos I took of North Georgia's Appalachian Mountains from Brasstown Bald, but processing in b&w brought out the sea of ripples.

View from high of a curving road leading up to Brasstown Bald, a van traveling up it, ripple of Appalachian mountains extending far into the distance beyond.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· May 28

View from Brasstown Bald, Georgia, 2014. Processed 2026. #blackandwhitephotography

Low-lying mountains of lower Appalachia, viewed from Brasstown Bald. Lots of grain. They recede into the distance.

Juli McKenna Kearns@idyllopus· May 22

Doubt this will help ID the make of the oddball tire (screen right), but here is the full (family) photo of the car.