Thirteen unique artistic endeavors will be presented in an exhibition titled Baker's Dozen at Adam and Art Gallery, 126 S. Allegheny St., in downtown Bellefonte.

Baker's Dozen, which runs until March 1, will feature many different artistic mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics and photography.

The exhibition is the sweat and tears of the artists in Paul Chidester's graduate seminar class in the School of Visual Arts. "We currently have a strong group of graduate students. It's important that they get to show their work to the public," Chidester said. The graduate class is a seminar that discusses contemporary art issues and it is the only art class for graduate students that is inter-disciplinary.

"It's unique for all of them to bring their individual work into a larger dialogue," Chidester said. Jason Overton, an artist represented in the Baker's Dozen, said that the exhibit is basically an opportunity to represent what each artist does individually. The name Baker's Dozen comes from the fact that there are 13 graduate students in the class, he said.

"The show is about how everyone works with their media in their own way," Overton said. "We work in close proximity to each other and the show highlights our differences. It's like going to the store and picking out 13 different doughnuts, they are all different, but still doughnuts."

Overton's work in the Baker's Dozen is a painting that he said is a flat aesthetic oriented around still-life objects from his home. The colors he used are the bright, flashy colors of advertising, but they are muted, he said.

"It's about how people take consumer products into the home and how they become a part of the home," Overton said. "It's inseparable from who I am." Pat Howard, whose photography is featured in the exhibit, said that the Baker's Dozen is a good opportunity for the art students to showcase their art in a group.

Howard's color photography is a look at Pennsylvania rural culture through the Grange Fair. At the Grange Fair, different Pennsylvania families will live out of tents for a couple of days. It is tradition at the fair that kids dress up animals in human clothing; this is the focus of Howard's photography. "I thought it was unusual and unique," Howard said. "To me it is kind of comical."

Mitch Kern, a graduate student who studies photography, said that Chidester came up with the idea of the exhibit and presented it to the class.

"Everyone in the class got enthusiastic about the exhibit and that's how it came to be," Kern said. Kern's work in the exhibit is a rubber head with white paint smeared on it. He said that the inspiration for his piece is how people's social identities empower them to face the problems in their society, such as racism and classicism.

"At Penn State we have a whiteness that is pervasive among the faculty and students," Kern said.

Another piece in the exhibit is an installation and printmaking work by Harriet Hacker. Hacker works with fabric, nail polish, beads and prints. Her piece in the show is an installation that uses pillows, each with a print and individual accessories. Hacker said that people and how they relate to each other inspire her artwork.

She said she questions certain values about woman in our society, such as the practice of women getting their hair done. A sculpture in the show by Kris Harzinski is what he calls a "waiting light."

"You wear it when waiting around for things, like a bus," Harzinski said.

The waiting light is a small fluorescent light that someone would wear around their waist, and the person can turn it on to draw attention to the fact that they are waiting for something.

On the inspirations for his waiting light and his art, Harzinski said, "I get my ideas from everyday life, things that are annoying or bothersome."

The Adam and Art Gallery is open from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays and 1 to 7 p.m. weekends. There will be a closing reception of the exhibit held March 1.