⚓ the crew
A Pirate's Life 4 Us
A family field journal about art, nature, childhood & making a life of our own.
We are a mother and daughter living and learning in the mountains of Southern Oregon.
We homeschool. We make art. We grow and gather herbs. We forage. We bake things. We study animals. We make jewelry and books and cards and strange little inventions. We wander around outside looking for things we haven't noticed before.
This website is where we're keeping track of it all. It's part family journal, part art project, part nature study, and part tiny online shop.
Welcome to our world.
So… what exactly is A Pirate's Life 4 Us?
That's a good question.
It's not exactly a business.
It's not exactly a homeschool blog.
And it's definitely not a perfectly curated account of family life.
It's an ongoing creative project about the way we live and learn together. Our days tend to move between books and forests, paintbrushes and garden beds, science experiments and baking projects, animal facts and elaborate imaginary worlds.
Instead of separating “school” from everything else, we try to pay attention to what we're genuinely curious about and see where it takes us.
Sometimes it takes us to the library.
Sometimes into the woods.
Sometimes into an art project that takes over the entire kitchen table.
And sometimes it turns into something we can share with you.
Who are you?
We're Dixie & Indy.
I'm Dixie — Indy's mom. I'm an artist, designer, writer, photographer, gardener, herbal tinkerer, and lifelong maker of things.
Indy is my daughter. She's an artist, storyteller, jewelry maker, animal lover, budding naturalist, entrepreneur, and prolific inventor of ideas.
And then there's Poopsie, our cat, who features heavily in both our lives and our creative work.
We're interested in a lot of things. Plants. Animals. Art. Food. Traditional skills. Natural medicine. Stories. Ecology. Craft. History. Homesteading. Beautiful old things. Strange little creatures. And how humans have figured out how to live in relationship with the natural world.
We don't always know what we're doing.
We're very good at finding out.
Are you homeschoolers?
Yes.
Although “school” at our house doesn't always look much like school. We learn through projects, adventures, books, conversations, experiments, classes, people we meet, places we visit, and whatever question happens to send us down the next rabbit hole.
A walk can turn into botany.
Baking becomes chemistry and fractions.
Making jewelry becomes design, mathematics, history, and entrepreneurship.
A fascination with cats can somehow become literature, illustration, business, biology, and an entire fictional universe.
We take learning seriously.
We just don't believe it has to happen sitting at a desk.
What do you make?
A little bit of everything.
There are things made by Indy. Things made by me. And things we make together.
You'll find art, jewelry, illustrated stories, books, cards, nature-inspired creations, experiments, and whatever else we're currently obsessed with making.
Some things become products in our shop.
Some remain experiments.
Some become gifts.
Some end up taped to our walls.
And occasionally something becomes the beginning of an entirely new adventure.
Why is there a shop?
Because learning how to make something and learning how to share it with the world are both valuable parts of a creative education.
Indy has been selling her artwork, jewelry, cards, and other creations since she was little.
This shop gives us a place to continue doing that together.
Purchases here help pay for the things that make our unconventional education possible: art supplies, books, workshops, field trips, nature programs, travel, tools, materials, and future adventures.
So when you buy something from us, you're getting a piece of what we're creating. And you're helping us keep creating.
What are Field Notes?
This is probably where things get interesting.
Our Field Notes are where we document what we're actually doing and learning. You might find:
- a foraging adventure,
- a plant we're studying,
- an art project,
- something Indy invented,
- a recipe,
- a science experiment,
- a place we visited,
- something we're trying to grow,
- an animal we're fascinated by,
- or simply a thought I wanted to remember about raising and educating a curious human.
Think of it as our family field journal.
Where are you going?
We're still figuring that out.
And that's one reason this website exists. I want Indy to grow up understanding that a creative life can be built in many different ways.
You can make things.
You can study the natural world.
You can learn from artists and farmers and herbalists and scientists and craftspeople.
You can travel somewhere because there's something there worth learning.
You can make work inspired by a place.
You can contribute to a community.
You can build a life around curiosity.
So we're beginning to look beyond home, too.
Are you open to residencies & collaborations?
Very much so.
We're interested in artist residencies, family-friendly creative residencies, farms, nature centers, educational programs, workshops, cultural exchanges, community projects, and other unusual opportunities to learn and make somewhere new.
I'm particularly interested in projects involving art, storytelling, nature, ecology, traditional skills, plants, food, craft, and place.
And because Indy is part of my creative life, I'm especially interested in exploring what an artist residency can look like when motherhood and childhood aren't treated as obstacles to creative practice, but part of the practice itself.
We would love opportunities to spend meaningful time somewhere — learning about a place, meeting the people who know it, making work in response to it, and sharing what we discover.
Why “A Pirate's Life 4 Us”?
Because we've never been particularly interested in following someone else's map.
We're trying to build a childhood — and a life — with room for curiosity, independence, creativity, nature, adventure, and a healthy amount of making things up as we go.
Some days that's an enormous adventure.
Some days it's drawing cats at the kitchen table.
Both count.
Welcome to A Pirate's Life 4 Us.
A family experiment in art, nature, learning & living curiously.
Come see what we're making.