Working in his Albany, Oregon studio, Jeremy Alden glued together 600 mass-produced Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils. They lend both lightness and surprising columnar strength in this visually arresting chair, which smudges the boundaries between mass production and fine art. Spare and slim, 50 Dozen resonates with the earlier painted furniture on view here. Trade with the Far East explains why most American pencils —Ticonderoga or otherwise — are painted yellow. After the mid-1850s, the finest graphite available on the world market came from a Siberian mine near the Chinese/Russian border. American pencil manufacturers imported this graphite and painted their wood casings yellow (a color associated with the Chinese imperial family) to indicate quality merchandise. The Baltimore Museum of Art is the first public institution to acquire a 50 Dozenchair — no. 5 from a projected series of 15.