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Another Excel Artist

In Minturn, Colorado: Artist 'Excels' at new art form.

John Wayne Smith parks his pick-up truck in his driveway, greets a pair of Arabian horses in the pasture outside his home, and makes his way through the blinding snow to his front door.

Inside this refurbished barn, Smith has invented a new art form. To explain what he means, Smith treads past a series of ramps he built for his cats and a drum set, and sits down at his desk.

Smith spends hours creating intricate designs on his computer with the Microsoft Excel program.

"It's all about using the draw function," he explains, slowly building a spider web of colorful shapes on the screen. "It's just point and click. It's like playing a video game. You kinda get hooked."

For a year and a half, Smith, 48, has been honing his Excel drawing skills at a desk overlooking this isolated Minturn ranch. Now, he hopes to share his discovery with the world.

Smith's work will be on display this week at the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. He also plans to teach a class on Excel art in February at Colorado Mountain College.

The photo here is the only one I could find. John Wayne Smith has a Web site called 3rdEyeArt, but he hasn't gotten around to posting anything yet.