Museum curator Lee Stevens wasn't sure what to expect from the 40th annual Art of the State exhibit.

"The judges change each year," she said. "Each of them has their likes and dislikes, so it's always exciting to see what emerges."

What has emerged is a wide-ranging, inspiring array of photographs, paintings, sculptures and fine crafts that do the diverse state of Pennsylvania proud.

Hosted by the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Art of the State is a free exhibit that showcases new works by artists from 34 counties.

"Lancaster County is always well-represented," Stevens said. This year, the show includes works by Lancaster residents Hubert Fitzgerald, Carol Galligan and Matthew Lester, Jun-Cheng Lui of Mountville, Janette Toth of Columbia, Barbara Dombach of Holtwood, Wendy Edsall-Kerwin of Elizabethtown, Carolyn Coyle of Lititz and Georgette Veeder of Adamstown. "It is a special thing to see works recently created by people in your area."

One of the show's most delightful discoveries is Brenna K. Murphy's playful "Home is Where the Hair Is," a quirky silver gelatin print series in which the artist has stitched the ghostly outlines of furniture pieces with strands of her own hair onto black-and-white photo images of empty rooms.

Lorraine Glessner's candy-colored "Saccharine" is an encaustic and mixed-media treat that joins confettilike patterned paper, wax and pigment to create cotton-candy pastels and rust, patina and tooth-enamel tones.

Viktor Terechko offers an otherworldly, darkly luminous woodland scene of carved blonde wood and combed black paint.

There's Patricia Menick's timely, sly "Chatter," a work that deftly comments on the dehumanizing, isolating effects of modern communication; and James G. Mundie's intriguing ink drawing "Young Woman With a Parisitic Twin Wearing a Mantilla and Basquina," a piece that refers directly to a much more traditional, twin-free Goya portrait.

While knowing a bit about Goya might deepen your regard for the latter piece, Stevens stressed that you don't need to be an art scholar to thoroughly enjoy the show.

"There is a lot of artwork in this show that is easily appreciated by anyone — works that people with no particular interest in art will spend minutes looking at," she said. "It's an interesting mixture."

Some of the more easily accessible pieces include "Mrs. Dionne Adams," Allen Capriotti's representational portrait of a regal woman in an opulent setting, and Julia Statton's black bronze sculpture of six running soldiers.

Cheryl Harper's ceramic stoneware companion pieces "Hillary Sphinx" and "Condoleezza Sphinx" also are timely works that attract much attention. They present a heavily made-up Hillary Rodham Clinton adorned in a sunny yellow business suit, pearls and a schoolgirl-sentimental, heart-shaped ankle bracelet, and sporting the bottom half of a donkey; and an elephant-bottomed Condoleezza wearing an earth-tone headpiece with an elephant-shaped brooch.

In a dazzling twist on the traditional, Laura Wagner dishes up gleefully subversive humor in "Barefoot in the Kitchen," a cheeky screen print of a 1950s-era mother and child in black shoes and dresses. In Wagner's imagined kitchen, the mother, in Cleaveresque full skirt, apron and heels, places a cookie sheet into the oven as her pinafored daughter looks on. The scene could be straight from a vintage children's book, were it not for the two dismembered human legs resting on the cookie sheet.

Her work displays nicely with Robert Stickloon's irreverent, scene-stealing "Howdy Doody Does the Hamptons," a pop-culture favorite that presents the vintage children's character as a paper doll, surrounded by all of the outfits and accessories he would need for a cocktail hour, dog show, rugby match and outdoors jaunt.

"A lot of people stop at that one," said Kenn Edwards, a longtime museum security guard and self-described art layman who can spot a crowd-pleasing piece from across a well-stocked gallery. "The more time you spend around it, the more you see."

He went on to point out a favorite piece on the opposite side of the emotional spectrum. Chuck Hamilton's somber "EEG #25" photographic montage tells the story of an Agent Orange-exposed soldier's grief and guilt over the death of his son.

There are vaguely unnerving pieces, such as Thomas John Reing's "Beautiful at a Distance, Complicated as You Get Close," an iconic, postmodern portrait of a woman that delivers precisely what it promises. And there are quietly contemplative pieces, like Keith Crowley's moody oil painting of two slab-white trucks on a misty morning highway, and Hubert Fitzgerald's mystic "Every Man Has a Door." "Mata Ortiz: Primary School," a reflective photo by recent Guggenheim award winner Carl Sander Socolow, also warrants close inspection.

The exhibit includes several striking craft pieces. Amber Drake's series of jewelry-inspired pieces make intriguing use of sterling and fine silver, found objects, freshwater pearls and red Indian corn, and Wendy Edsall Kerwin attaches a filmy netted-golden veil to a brass/pyrite headpiece for exotic effect.

But the crown craft piece of the exhibit is an exquisite melding of artistry and nature study titled "Solenopsis Cluster #2." By drizzling clay into bottle molds, artist Ken Turner of Indiana, Pa., created intricate organic patterns in porcelain that suggest the fire ant mounds of his home state, Mississippi. The piece was recently purchased for the museum's 6,000-piece permanent collection, which should be ready for exhibit within two years.

"The exhibit really shows the great artistic talent we have in Pennsylvania," Stevens said. "Pennsylvania is so blessed to have such a large number of art institutions, and there are so many good artists here who don't have enough places to exhibit. We give them that opportunity. It's a very strong show."

That's no news to Edwards.

"This is a real fun exhibit that everyone can enjoy," he said, pointing out a 3-D work titled "Pack Rat," which, he said, children adore. "There's something for everyone here."

The Art of the State exhibit runs through Sept. 9 at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, 300 North Street, Harrisburg. For more information, call 787-4980.