DAY FOUR: The June 18 presentations focus on preservation -- artifacts, documents and Hemingway’s Cuban residence, Finca Vigia. Susan Wrynn, curator of the Hemingway Collection at the Kennedy Library in Boston, presents an engaging overview of Hemingway’s art collection, personal artifacts, photos and letters housed at the Kennedy Library. She also plays a clip of the writer’s voice, which is exciting to hear. Walter Newman, of the North East Document Conservation Center, discusses treatment plans involved in the conservation and preservation of Hemingway’s notebooks, manuscripts and photographs, “plans” that are outlined in international agreements.
Because the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park owns and maintains both Hemingway’s birthplace home and his boyhood home, I find it insightful to hear Jenny and Frank Phillips discuss the 2002 founding of the Finca Vigia Foundation. Using both political and financial appeals, this U.S. couple engaged on an inspiring mission to save the documents and 9000 volume library housed at Finca Vigia as well as restore the house. Bill Dupont, chief architect for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Finca Vigia technical team leader, then expands on the Phillips’ presentation by discussing the topic of “Preserving Places of Creative Inspiration,” stating that “(Preservation) goes beyond tangible objectives…One must know what a place meant to an artist to make preservation decisions."
In the late afternoon our group travels to Cojimar, the setting of The Old Man and the Sea, and the site of the bronze bust of Hemingway cast from boat propellers, anchors and other donations from the local fisherman who honored the writer after his death in 1961. The members of the Colloquium pay tribute to the writer by placing a large arrangement of white roses next to the bust. I, personally, am honored by being one of four Colloquium participants chosen to place the flowers next to the Hemingway memorial. After the presentation of flowers, we visit another of Hemingway’s favorite places, Restaurant Las Terrazas, which overlooks the bay where the old man kept his boat.
