The Wayne State College Blue Cat Gallery and Studio held its opening reception for their 2nd annual Under Two Hundred Show last Thursday.

The exhibit runs through Dec. and provides an outlet for artists such as Francine Fox to showcase their work. Fox teaches painting and drawing courses at WSC and is a national and international exhibiting artist whose work is represented by Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York.

Fox has exhibited at the Siena Art Institute in Siena, Italy, the Social Sciences Research Council in Brooklyn, New York, and the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science, and Art in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Fox had a set of three small paintings that went together: “Gold,” “Frankincense,” and “Myrrh.” Each of them represented gifts that the wise men presented Jesus with when he was born.

“They’re little detailed drawings,” Fox said. “I did wordplay things like I did the gold coins, I used a gold finch, because it’s titled “Gold.” Frankincense you kind of burn, it has a little perfume.

Myrrh is actually what they use with the embalming stuff. Because they were gifts of the wise man brought to the nativity, I thought ‘oh let’s put birthday stuff in it.’ So, I put little birthday bows and little curly ribbons in all three of them.”

Though Fox didn’t create these pieces recently, she felt they show significant value in her work.

They were done a while ago, I feel like 2012 or something, but per piece they took maybe two or three weeks,” Fox said. “It doesn’t take long to draw it, but it takes a while to figure out where you want everything to go, and figure out the editing process, sort of deciding on a bunch of studies before you do it on the real piece, what’s gonna be in it.”

Local artist Lexi Culver also took the opportunity to show many of her pieces. One of her favorite pieces, “Independent Thought,” proved to be a challenge.

“It took me a couple weeks; the process is kind of intense,” Culver said. “It’s on a zinc plate, so there’s a bunch of different processes you have to do to it. You have to do the drawing, put it onto the plate, do a bunch of things to the plate before you can even start. You have to soak it in acid, and then once you do that you do a bunch of test runs, print it out and then you have to keep editing it.

That was the first time I’ve done this editing process which is why I think it’s my favorite.”

The Blue Cat Gallery and Studio will also celebrate Black Friday and Small Business Saturday on Nov. 23 and 24, offering a 10 percent discount on all featured artwork, along with refreshments and a raffle for three $25 gift certificates. The public is welcome to stop in anytime during business hours. Names for the raffle will be drawn at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24. No purchase is necessary to enter the drawing.