On Gathered Leaves: An Open Letter to Sonia Del Re and Kirsten Appleyard of the National Gallery of Canada
Today, July 9, 2026, I had the pleasure of pre-recording a conversation with Dr. Sonia Del Re, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada, for The Blue Hour. The interview will air on Tuesday, July 14, at 2 p.m. Pacific on CiTR 101.9 FM.
In anticipation of that conversation, I wanted to return to a letter I sent last fall, after having had the privilege of giving docent tours of Gathered Leaves at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler. The reflection below also grew out of my earlier meditation on Inception, which became part of the way I introduced visitors to the exhibition.
And now, as Gathered Leaves continues its journey, the exhibition will be on display at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, from September 19, 2026, to January 3, 2027.
Originally sent Friday, November 14, 2025
Dear Sonia and Kirsten,
For weeks, I have wanted to reach out to extend my sincere thanks for the extraordinary opportunity and privilege of being part of Gathered Leaves at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler.
I am one of many volunteer docents here, and as “teachers,” we do the best we can to share the collections with visitors. Your exhibition from the National Gallery of Canada, however, was exceptional. I used your videos as guides—recordings of you speaking about the works—the gorgeous exhibition catalogue, and my own interpretation of the pieces that spoke to me.
I began my tour almost philosophically, because as the weeks progressed and my knowledge of the art deepened, I couldn’t help projecting something more onto the experience. I noticed that visitors appreciated this, and the exhibition taught me that, as a writer, I can also weave a story into every tour.
We always begin our museum tours by looking at Xwalacktun (Rick Harry)’s aluminum sculpture The Big Flood. Harry’s work was the perfect segue into Gathered Leaves, because by contrasting his strong aluminum material with the fragile works on paper in the special exhibition—works that scarcely come out of the vault for public viewing—I immediately had visitors thinking about the longevity and preservation of art, and how each medium or material is affected by time.
Five centuries of works on paper, carefully protected and preserved from the spoilage of time and the outside elements, is outstanding. What a testament to the love and care that the Prints and Drawings department at the National Gallery has given these works—curators like yourselves, who have devoted so much to this art so that we have the privilege of enjoying it firsthand.
As we entered the first gallery, I had the public pause to think not only about the fragility of the art we were about to see, in contrast to that strong aluminum, but also about the “prelude” of the art itself. Because so many of the drawings in the collection were studies, I wanted to go a step further. What was in the mind of the artist before the first draft was sketched?
As a writer, I began to bring my own words into the tour, and I found that this short reflection on inception set the tone in a way I hadn’t experienced before:
Today I spent some time thinking about the word inception.
Inception is that fragile beginning— the moment when something imagined intersects with something real.
This may be the beginning of the beginning— when an idea comes, the instant it emerges, when its essence is formed.
It is the moment when a musician first hears a new melody in silence: the time that precedes writing it down, before holding the instrument.
There was always silence following these words, and even more silence when I spoke about how this short-lived exhibition would go back into the vault for another decade or so for its “beauty sleep”—all to ensure that the works remain with us.
This set a tone in which I believe visitors felt they were about to witness something extraordinary—that this was not a usual exhibition, but an introspective journey into the minds of many artists.
I would love to spend many hours sharing with you the insights and feedback I received from visitors. However, I will share one small story.
I had a difficult time pulling myself away from Francisco Goya. I had the privilege of visiting the Prado in Madrid this past summer. It was my first time in Goya’s Dark Room, seeing his dark paintings from his later years.
And so it was extraordinary to see those four little drawings in this collection, and how the small sketches told, I believe, as large a story as many of his massive works in paint. La Muerte de Antón Requena, for example, had extraordinary power, similar in my mind to his famous anti-war painting The Third of May 1808. In fact, I think it is fair to make the comparison because Goya did not shy away from showing the brutality of the moment. That a small sketch, innocent as it was, can be compared to such a large work speaks so much about the importance of these pieces. And those little “aphorisms” in his titles that he is famous for, in collections like Los Caprichos, spoke to me as a writer, because Goya was telling us a story not only with his drawings, but also with words.
I don’t believe this exhibition will leave my mind anytime soon. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, and I am now taking all of that passion with me as I give tours of our permanent collection at the Audain Museum, and the many exhibitions to come.
Thank you once again.
All my best,
Farha
Other reflections on art: Dwelling Inside a Work of Art: An Open Letter to Master Carver James Hart and Letter to the Audain Museum.