Artist Residencies at Historic Sites: Exploring a New Role for Pond Farm

Abstract

Artist Residencies at Historic Sites:Exploring a New Role for Pond Farm Caitlin Strokosch (bio) Pond Farm, founded in Guerneville, California, in the 1930s by Gordon and Jane Herr, was originally conceived as an artist colony with a faculty composed primarily of artisans forced to flee Nazi Europe. Envisioned by Gordon Herr as a “sustainable sanctuary for artists away from a world gone amuck,” Pond Farm evolved into the Pond Farm Pottery school of ceramic arts under the leadership of Marguerite Wildenhain, an internationally renowned female pioneer in ceramics and ceramics education and a central figure in the studio pottery movement and the emergence of ceramics as an important art form. Wildenhain, an early Bauhaus graduate and Germany’s first female “Master Potter,” was forced to leave her teaching post because of her Jewish ancestry when the National Socialists came to power in 1933. After initially immigrating to the Netherlands, she was forced to once more flee the Nazis in 1940, eventually making her way to Pond Farm in 1942. The site—including a 19th-century livestock barn converted into a ceramics studio and showroom, Marguerite’s modest home, a guest cottage, and cultivated landscape—served for half a century as an important gathering place for artists, students and visionaries to explore art-making, design and critical theory about education and the environment. Owned by the California State Department of Parks and Recreation since 1964 and part of the Austin Creek State Recreation Area, the Pond Farm site has been closed to the public and minimally maintained in a state of “arrested decay” since Marguerite’s death in 1985. In 2012 the National Trust named Pond Farm a National Treasure and joined forces with the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, the California State Parks Foundation, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation to transform Pond Farm into a preserved, well-maintained and engaging [End Page 19] historic site with strong community support and a sustainable management plan. Click for larger view View full resolution Located in Sonoma County, California, Pond Farm was the home and studio of Marguerite Wildenhain, an internationally renowned female pioneer in ceramics and ceramics education. Pictured here is the barn that she used as her pottery studio. While Pond Farm is situated in a state park and its legacy is steeped in its unique Northern California setting, its significance extends well beyond its local associations. The Pond Farm Pottery Historic District was recently listed in the National Register for its national significance in the areas of art, education, and social history. Pond Farm holds a compelling place in the history of art and arts education, women’s history, Jewish history, and sustainable living, and above all it embodies a universal story of triumph in the face of adversity. In addition to seeking capital investments in site stabilization, the partners are exploring the creation of a small-scale artist residency program along with other arts programming that will engage the public and share the story of Pond Farm. It is in this context that the Alliance of Artists Communities—an international association of artist residency centers—was recently asked by the National Trust to explore how the arts and artist residency programs can offer a path forward in re-envisioning historic sites. WHAT ARE ARTIST RESIDENCIES? Over a century ago, the first artist colonies in the United States were created as places where artists gathered to devote themselves [End Page 20] wholly to their art, typically seeking seclusion, a bucolic natural landscape, and the fellowship of like-minded individuals. Today there are more than 1,500 artist residency centers around the globe, defined as places that provide dedicated time and space to artists of any discipline for the development of new creative work. While artist residency centers take many shapes, they are all guided by the conviction that supporting individuals in the creation of new work and the exploration of new ideas is essential to human progress. Beyond sharing this core value, there are countless residency models. There are programs for one or two artists at a time or 50 creative fellows; programs that focus on a single discipline or bring together visual artists, writers...