No, it is not art… I am lazy and this is as efficient as it gets. I have done a lot of shoveling of snow and these are “heat & traction” stripes. What you want to do is break up the insulation effect of the snow. The stripes with no snow expose the black road which as we know black absorbs the heat from the sun. During the day they heat up and melt the white stripes… in a few ours of sunlight the driveway is clean with minimal amount of shoveling. If it fails to melt during the day the stripes are enough to provide traction. Yes I’m a geek but it does have it’s advantages.