A woman -- dressed simply in black, her skin fair, her lips brushed crimson, her thick auburn hair drawn into a loose gather at the back of her neck -- sits at a table studiously working.

Before her lies a bundle of hair, the same shade of red as her own, from which she meticulously withdraws a single strand that she stretches along the edge of a metal ruler.

This measurement she records in a neat column on the page of a small notebook, and the hair joins a pile that adjusts its undisciplined configuration with each new arrival.

She reaches for the next hair.

The woman is Delanie Jenkins, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 2007 Artist of the Year, and her weekly presence in the galleries brings performance to this distinguished exhibition for the first time in its 58-year history.

The installation she sits within, "11,280 Strands and Counting ...," gets its title from the number of hairs measured before the exhibition opened Sept. 14, their combined length at that date totaling 105,373⁷/₈ inches or 1.66 miles. By last week, the count was 11,920 strands and nearly 110,693 inches.

Jenkins, who has exhibited widely at such venues as the Mattress Factory and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and is chairwoman of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Studio Arts, is known for installation art that simultaneously exudes poetic grace and visceral potency. Generally her work comprises objects that in most hands would become refuse. In Jenkins' they take on a lyrical beauty that hovers on the edge of ephemeral, or, perhaps, mystical. Often there is a direct or oblique reference to the body, particularly regarding women's experience within the broader culture.

About three years ago, she had her hair cut and saved it. In preparation for this exhibition, she computer-scanned the three stored "pony tails" and enlarged them as 10-foot-high digital prints. These, and an early 20th-century vitrine that holds the counting project when she's not there, complete the installation.

Someone told her that the average head of hair has 111,000 strands but that the average redhead has only 90,000. "So, we'll see," Jenkins says.

But the research is tangential.

From teen obsession to taboo, Victorian mourning keepsake to fetish, human hair has the potential to unsettle, and Jenkins plays upon that.

Her intrinsic womanhood -- mature, sensual -- serendipitously (or, not), perfectly completes the piece. A fleshy sentient being, moving in almost mechanical rhythm, she inspires the same conflicted feelings the rest of the installation does. As the viewer constructs a narrative, the scene transforms into fable.

There are three other equally loaded and tactile components to Jenkins' show.

On a sweeping, curved wall that softens the white-box configuration of an adjacent gallery are patterns scrupulously fashioned of radish roots and shadow. Evoking scientific undertakings like maps, astronomical charts and insect collections, they inspire consideration of the way order is constructed.

Beyond that, "Radix," as well as the two other explorations of larger scope, challenges preconceived notions about material, waste, valuation, complexity and the bountifulness of everyday existence -- all packaged within consistently creative, technically polished, artworks.

In January 2003, Jenkins attended a local peace rally with her then 6-month-old daughter, Lila. Both the message and the day were dark and dismal. "I was really struggling as a mother -- how to protect my child. What's the world coming to?" she says. She pulled a clementine out of her pocket, and its cheery orange glow dispelled some of the surrounding gloom.

The "Clementine Series" reflects that optimism, even a playfulness in the figural aspects of the dimpled skins that Jenkins saved and pressed, then reincarnated as etchings, huge ink-jet prints, an animated video and a group of soft-sculpture spheres.

If the clementines are vivid, spunky and in your face, the work in "Traces of Absorption" -- drawn from the patterns of paper towels that caught her attention when cooking oil seeped into them -- is monochromatic, reserved and contemplative. Enlarged as prints, cast in white chocolate, the throwaways reveal an elegance akin to minimalist painting or fabric handiwork.

The sparks for Jenkins' projects are personal, but her achievement is to turn the attention back upon the item, and upon process, some objects and tools of which are displayed. Adding insight is a short film by recent Art Institute of Pittsburgh graduate Seth Sullivan, who thoughtfully balances the aesthetic and conceptual sides of Jenkins' expression.

Jenkins excels at tilting the way people look at things -- quietly, ritualistically drawing attention to subtle presences, and, through a means of enchantment all her own, transforming the way one sees and thinks about the world he or she moves through.

Jenkins "splits, counts and measures hairs" from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays. A catalog includes a thoughtful essay by Vicky A. Clark and the delightful "Make Your Own Clementine Sculpture!" The exhibition and "2007 Emerging Artist Adam Grossi" continue through Nov. 4 at 6300 Fifth Ave., Shadyside. Suggested donation: $5. Closed Mondays. Jenkins will speak Oct. 23, and a program with both artists and Clark will be held Oct. 27. Call 412-361-0873 or visit pittsburgharts.org.