A bit past noon on Tuesday, Pedro Marques picked up a rake and surveyed the small, treeless circle of grass in Caras Park.

"Oh man, lots of work to do," he sighed. "Why'd I get myself into this again?"

Just a day earlier, his work would have been much easier. That was before he, his wife Janaina and about two dozen other local residents spent the better part of Monday carefully spreading sackloads of dyed sawdust and wood chips on the grass lawn, creating a massive and colorful community artwork as part of Missoula's annual Day of the Dead celebration.

Pedro and Janaina, both natives of Brazil, brought the tradition from their homeland when they moved to Missoula last year.

"I grew up doing this kind of thing where I lived," explained Janaina. "You have thousands of people in the streets making carpets of sawdust. It's a beautiful community tradition."

Typically, the tradition takes place in conjunction with the Catholic Feast of Corpus Christi. But last year, when Janaina was contemplating what she could do for Missoula's Day of the Dead festival, she struck on the idea of combining elements from her native sawdust carpet tradition and Buddhist mandalas - sand paintings that are washed away upon completion.

"The commemoration of the transition from life to death seemed perfect for a mandala," she said. "I also liked the idea of doing a community art project. It seems to me in America, art is something only artists do, but in Brazil people engage and do it, so I thought this would be a good way to spread that idea."

The mandala was created on Monday, out of a truckload of bagged sawdust that was dyed with food coloring.

Tuesday's order of business: Wipe it all away. Over the course of an hour, the Marqueses and three other volunteers silently raked up the sawdust and took it away. The sawdust, they said, would be used to mulch new trees.

Ashes to ashes, sawdust to sawdust.

"The idea is that you take all of the energy people have put into it, honor that energy, and spread it back out into the world," said Pedro.

"For me, the beauty of this is not about the result, but about the process of working together all day," added Janaina. "This is so perfect for Missoula because people here are so much about community and expression."

Reporter Joe Nickell can be reached at jnickell@missoulian.com or 523-5358.