In making value judgments, most individuals rely heavily on their own experience. Since he himself has built a reputation as a master colorist, for example, it is little wonder that Leo Twiggs would be drawn to artists that use color with great skill.  This personal attraction evidently played a part in the task that faced Twiggs earlier this month as he arrived in Aiken to judge the fall show of the Aiken Artist Guild.

Now on view in the upper gallery of USCA's Etherredge Center, the forty-three works in the current show run the gamut in media and subject matter. Yet all ten pieces selected for special commendation have one thing in common; they reflect the trained eye of one of our state's most important painters and art educators and the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in his discipline from the Universitey of Georgia.    

For "Best in Show", Dr. Twiggs selected a charcoal and pastel work entitled "The Nap." In rendering the figure whose nude form recedes from the viewer, Bea Kuhlke has achieved, according to Twiggs, a sense of "mystery" because of the fact that the face is not fully outlined and the body seems almost to sink into the mattress. Twiggs praised Kuhlke for ther "subtle color use" and skillful manipulation of an "unforgiving" mediun" to produce an image that is as solft and warm as its title implies.

The three first-place blue ribbons went to two oils and one photograph.  Dr. Twiggs compared the organic geometry of "Red Dissolving" by Thad Suits to a jazz composition, likening the artist's knowledge of color value, the degree of lightness and darkness, to the musician's mastery of rhythm to create a mood.

The abstract composition "Ocean Antiquities" by Deborah Tidwell Holtzscheiter reads like a magified, foam-drenched portion of seashell; Twiggs called this work a prime example of how the artist can often see what others don't. He also judged Allen Fordyce's color digital photograph entitled "Silver Bluff Dragon #1" the best presented piece in the show since the dark mat and frame further accentuate the central image with its slender, silver body and golden, net-veined wings that read like the crackled surface of a raku pot.

The three second-place, red ribbon pieces pose challenges to visual acuity.  Louise Mellon's large oil pastel reads, from a distance, like a flying saucer about to refuel at a station in outer space, but as closer inspection indicates and the title confirms, it is actually the single wheel and axle of a barrow; Dr. Twiggs see the work as a fine example of how one can successfully mediate between primary and secondary colors to achieve an image rich in connotation.

Dorothy Johnson's small fabric piece man, at first glance, seem to be essentially an abstract study in surface texture until one examines the work more closely, observes how the colors move in vertical bands from green to violet, and reads the title "Lichen at Sunset". Finally, Donald Swindler's astract oil pastel entitled "Dip" forces the eye to hop about the image by its application of black elliptical lines; there seemingly improvised gestures give the work a sense of playfull spontaneity.

Dr. Twiggs applauded the compositional dexterity of the three artists who gamered third-place honorable mention awards. In her oil "Langley Pond"  Myrtie Cushman is able to achieve balance in an essentially asymmetrical landscape by the clever use of transparent brushstrokes that move the eye to the empty spaces at the right of the image. In her acrylic "Polo Boots" Nanette Langner assembles a variety of polo player accoutement to achieve an interesting triangular composition.  In her mixed media watercolor entitled "Hanging by a Thread", Bobbie Cheetham creates a sophisticated study in counterpoint by superimposing a red strign on transparent layer of color.

Finally, the first-place prize in sculpture Dr. Twiggs awarded to Tom Supensky for his painted ceramic piece entitled "A Sack Full of Love".  This diminutive work is literally a replica in clay of a small fabric bag at whose opening perch two lovebirds. Twiggs found the piece perfectly believable, and he called attention to the subtle iridescent color on what appears, at first glance, to be a simple white sack.

The Aiken Artist Guild's fall show, organize by Mary Alice Lockhart, will be on view until the end of this month. For more information, call 641-3305.