AUXARCZEN:THE HOUSE THAT GATHERED ITS NAMES

Why everything is now Auxarczen.

We have rebranded

not to become something else

but to become who we always were.

For a while our work lived under several different names -

GO!PRESS

JENNIFER CARTRIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

PRAIRIE WISE

Each name carried a purpose.

Each did real work in the real world.

Books were published.

Images were captured.

Logos were produced.

Ideas became objects that could be held.

But, over time something became clear.

This was never separate work.

It was always one studio

one conversation

one vision.

So we gathered everything under one name.

Welcome to -

This rebranding is not about changing direction,

its about revealing the structure that always existed.

The press, the photography, and the studio

have always been connected by the same intention.

To bring meaningful, creative work

into finished form with care, clarity,

joy and presence.

This is not a reset

This is a consolidation,

a sharpening.

If you have worked with us before, you are still in the right place.

If you are just finding us now, welcome.

The doors are open.

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE REDESIGN

Introducing Walks With Words

We were commissioned to create a book cover. That entails me taking a photograph and Michael creating the graphics. When I started rolling the book's title around, waiting for inspiration, an image popped into my head. A typewriter in the desert plugged directly into the earth.

Like this -

WHAT DOES THE EARTH SAY

Or this -

PLUGGED IN

Now that I am thinking about it, I might have stolen that loose idea from Monty Python's Flying Circus and John Cleese sitting at a desk on the beach. The absurdity of that image has stuck around in the recesses of my brain.

Like this -

not my photo

Or this -

found on the internet, i didn't take this

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

As we were walking around the sand dunes looking for different locations to set the typewriter, I kept catching Michael out of the corner of my eye. So I started placing him in the frame.

Like this -

SURF'S UP

and this -

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

Before long, we started a little game that I think might be unique to us. That guy in the photos became a character. So if he was a character he needed a name. Michael named him Walks With Words and we started planning shots containing him. You know, Walks With Words because it was no longer Michael. When we commit we commit. The first few pictures looked -

Like this -

LISTENING FOR THE MUSE

and this -

WAITING ON THE SUN

and this -

THE POET ROAD

Next step, some tweaking of the wardrobe. I have been trying to get Michael to buy a pair of cowboy boots for YEARS. You see, the first time I saw him walking across The Olivia Apartments lobby, he was wearing cowboy boots and he walks like Kris Kristofferson in them! So, of course boots were ordered, we needed them for a costume. Then I fitted him with my hat and the outfit was complete. The pictures came out

like this -

SITS WITH WORDS

and this -

IN HIS ELEMENT

Of course we needed a character sketch

Walks With Words

Is a

Poet

In his early 60s

He

Travels light

boots, sunglasses, questionable destinations,

and one electric typewriter.

A product of the poetic past.

He writes in arroyos, on dunes, along back roads, and next to adobes.

He keeps the myth of the wandering poet alive

with electricity fueled by the earth.

We needed the character sketch because how else would we know how he would pose in pictures?

Like this -

HOME

and this -

WALKS WITH WORDS

If you happen to see him typing into the wind somewhere, out on the road, just wave and pass on by,

he's hardly at work.

Love & Tolerance on the High Road

When married to a poet, a perfect day begins when a poem started two years ago reaches its final form.

Today is going to be one of those perfect days due to the fact that this gem was on the table this morning as I sat down to drink my coffee.

Michael's new poem grows out of a real encounter we had on a stretch of road near Dixon, New Mexico, where the road briefly opened into something stranger. A moment suspended between fear and grace. What begins as a simple act of human kindness unfolds into meditation on instinct, memory, and the fragile thread that ties strangers together on the same road. One fresh in the communion of sobriety, the other in the depths of addiction.

The stranger becomes a messenger instead of a threat.

"Amore

Amore

It's always amore"

It's a true story, told the only way it could be told,

as a poem about love & tolerance and the mysterious ghosts that we meet along the way.

GHOST ON THE HIGH ROAD NEAR DIXON, NM

The Gift emerged,

rising from a rained-in ditch

after last rites for dead car (not his)

concluded on flatter tires.

I shook the glass bottle of holy dirt,

gathered by my grandmother's ghost a day earlier,

before returning it to pocket. Forever washed

in a blessing of perceived protection.

We measured one another head to toe

like responsible alpha men do, unconsciously of course,

but only to the point where neither one of us

wanted to do anything about it. Even if we needed to.

Following a gesture, not meaningless, nor remembered,

he climbed into the back seat with his backpack,

which now, in my mind, may contain a gun.

His first words, once settled in,

“I've been drinking all day, I've

been alcoholic my whole life, but

the ladies of Dixon will welcome me.”

Inside my head, the conversation starts,

“Look hon, a living dead ghost mumbling from the back seat!”

Out of nowhere, and just then, the hyper-vigilant cortisol kicks in.

Where in the hell did I hide the knife? My wife appears to be moving

out of body, above the trees, surrendering the entire scene.

Descending out of the canyon I spot his destination

while cataloging, indexing, and filing this latest great decision.

“You can drop me anywhere, it doesn't matter.”

Leaning forward now, in between the bucket seats,

the parting word shots of a now somewhat lucid ghost.

Five fingertips pulled into prayer, in an inebriated spitting whisper,

now reaching for my hand and holding it in a grip of holy mist.

“Amore

Amore

It's always amore”

Next village this black cat

attempted to cross our path

with one confident step.

“No fucking way, not today!”

Then, quite wisely, Blackie put on the spiritual brakes.

“There is just too much love on this hwy for that!”

Simply follow the sign, avoid the dip back into Old Ways.

Sorting through the wreckage

I unearth an everlasting lesson:

Always pick up the obvious tool at hand.

Lovingly resist baked-in colonial paranoia.

Embrace it and love it to death.

Let's put it this way,

Amore e Tolleranza

Amor y Tolerancia

Love & Tolerance

© 2024 MARCH – 2026 FEB MICHAEL CARTRIGHT