Pond Farm, Art colony in Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, US.

Pond Farm is an art colony within Austin Creek State Recreation Area in Sonoma County, California, made up of two residences and a barn converted into a pottery studio. The site also includes workspace and teaching areas spread across an open property that once supported a working community of ceramic artists and students.

Gordon and Jane Herr bought part of Rancho Del Lago around 1939-40 and renamed it Pond Farm after its large pond. Gordon recruited Bauhaus-trained potters Marguerite and Frans Wildenhain in Putten, Netherlands; Marguerite arrived in 1940 and moved there in 1942. Summer workshops ran from 1949 to 1953, when the group split; Jane Herr died of breast cancer in 1952. Marguerite Wildenhain kept Pond Farm Pottery going until 1980 and died in 1985, when the land passed to the state.

Marguerite Wildenhain, who had studied pottery at the Weimar Bauhaus, ran Pond Farm Pottery after the workshops dissolved in 1953 and taught summer sessions until 1980. She made beginners start with dog dishes and learn every throwing step before moving on. Students included Dean Schwarz, later co-founder of South Bear School, and Dorothy Bearnson of the University of Utah, who attended seven summer workshops between 1947 and 1964.

Pond Farm lies on a hilltop about 600 ft above the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, near the entrance to the forest, and became part of Austin Creek State Recreation Area after 1985. The site holds two small residences and a barn used as a pottery studio, so expect uneven outdoor ground rather than visitor facilities. In 2013 the site received $443,245 in Prop 84 Cultural Stewardship funding to stabilize the house and barn.

Marguerite Wildenhain died in 1985, not 1995; her property then reverted to the State of California and became part of Austin Creek State Recreation Area. In 2013 the site received $443,245 in Prop 84 Cultural Stewardship funding to stabilize the house and barn.