Curators and Cornell MFA students Michael Morgan and Elina Ansary cited two significant inspirations for creating a salon-style, cat-themed exhibition. And he researched the life of English illustrator Louis Wain, whose 20th-century anthropomorphized drawings helped popularize cats as household pets. Morgan adopted a gray Siamese cat that he named after the Zelda character Rauru when he moved to Ithaca last fall to start his master’s program. “I’m a dog person, but a Siamese cat is the most doglike of cats, and now I’m more of a cat person. Morgan began reaching out to artists in the Cornell community, and word quickly spread beyond the Finger Lakes region.