Al Need

"Color, form, and texture, bathed in many different qualities of light, are the basic tools by which nature identifies itself. Nature uses these tools creatively to communicate symbolic information about its own reality. The artist, probing color, light, form, and texture to express their best potential, thus becomes one of nature's "high priests," bearing witness, as does nature, to the same ultimate truths. If he is successful, he reassuringly demonstrates that man himself, like nature, is not separate from but is very much a part of the creative forces so beautifully manifest in the universe around us."

- Al Need (1911-1986)

Al Need in Art Studio/Gallery in Mendocino, 1963
Dad called his first gallery The Workbench was in a tiny cubbyhole office area off the side of a commercial garage/gas station. On the main road into Mendocino, one could see Dad painting as one drove by. At this time of his painting career he sold paintings off the easel before they were dry.