The Gallery at Tacoma Community College is a cut above what one would expect to find on the campus of a community college. Architecturally sophisticated, the gallery is one of Tacoma’s hidden gems, often hosting art shows of superb quality.

The gallery’s current offering is no exception. “Fruition, Maturation, Transformation” is a lavish display by ceramic artist Gail E. Kelly. With some 30 years experience under her belt, Kelly has assembled an exhibition of 24 sculptural works that explore a wide range of techniques within the ceramic medium.

Kelly’s forms are organic and often derived from objects encountered in nature, such as bones, seeds, stumps, stalks and shells.

While some of Kelly’s pieces are individual ceramic works, most incorporate multiple forms (a la Dale Chihuly). There are simple groupings of forms as in “Incisive Wisdom,” in which a trio of units - made to resemble whale teeth - are presented leaning against one another. The salt-fired kiln technique gives their surface an opalescent quality.

At the other end of the spectrum is a piece entitled “Fruition” that comprises more than 200 individual pieces. Strewn across the middle of the gallery, the ceramic pieces are made in the shapes of pinecones, enlarged seeds and other organic objects that one might encounter on the forest floor. Kelly has been working on the individual components of this composition since 1991. They are made of porcelain, stoneware terra cotta and paper clay. A wide range of kiln techniques was used in their creation: raku, reduction firings and oxidation.  “This piece is about how many seeds have to be sewn for one to sprout,” noted Kelly.

In other works, such as “Tidal Residue,” Kelly draws upon marine forms for her inspiration. Here there are enlarged versions of broken seashells, beach stones, barnacles, limpets and the spherical skeletons of sea urchins. Kelly shows the beauty of a broken snail shell with the spiral architecture of its interior exposed.

“Winter Weeds,” meanwhile, is a masterpiece of poetic understatement. Here the stalks and stumps of once-flourishing plants are represented by a series of organic tube forms. Each of the dozen tubes is a unique individual - a variation on the overall theme.

Kelly is fascinated by the “Native American idea of things having many uses. You use as much as you can of something - things don’t go to waste. In the winter, mice will eat fallen antlers as a source of protein and calcium.”

Kelly shows the bones, the shells, the husks that remain when the living essence has passed away. Yet there is also the germ of new life here. Those poetic stumps of dead weeds promise new growth to come in the spring.

Likewise, the skull-like form in “Hitchhiker” is actually a seedpod of a plant called Devil’s Claw. The dried pod is the carrier of the life of a new generation.

Kelly’s exhibit runs only two weeks. Catch this show while you can.