Just months before his death, Ed Ott finished converting a long trailer in his yard into a gallery to display his own paintings. There he proudly pointed out his artistic skills and accomplishments: "Not everyone can paint smoke like that," he would say, or he'd show off the detail in any one the many objects he included in a room or beside a barn in his pastoral scenes. Sometime during his 10-year artistic foray, that began to recuperate from a car accident, Ott began painting black Santa Clauses. Creating these both excited and contented him. He didn't see any "soul in the eyes" of his white Santas.