A snake made of stone lives in Polly Judd Park, next to its counterpart, a labyrinthine spiral that turns in on itself. Ava Barany and Sarah Edwards, the women behind The Botanical Alchemists, occasionally supply flower petals for children to float down while walking the dizzying path. Bikers and hikers pause on this stretch of the trail, drawn to the work. Fellow artists set up cairns nearby. Their work gains new layers through collaboration and participation, and the women have grown from embracing the transient, ephemeral beauty of their work and its decay. 

“These pieces are eventually going to go back to the earth, and our exercise of non-attachment to them helps us in our lives and a bigger picture of the world and life and death,” Ava says, mentioning her admiration for Buddhist sandpainting and box car art.

The park has a new creation from The Botanical Alchemists—Rosita Bonita—a sugar skull crafted from rocks, flowers, succulents, cypress boughs, hawthorn berries, horse chestnuts, and more. 

The women have traveled to Mexico, and were deeply touched by the Mexican holiday Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead—a Hispanic holiday where families welcome back souls of deceased loved ones for a brief reunion. In Spokane, the Hispanic Business/Professional Association hosts this annual holiday. 

The Botanical Alchemists had constructed a skull last year, but in our current world, processing grief and loss is more present. Rosita Bonita is a collective community memorial—Ava and Sarah invite everyone to visit, leave their own offerings within or around Rosita Bonita and take a moment to process losses. 

“It is a time when many people are experiencing more loss, and not just the loss of loved ones—but it’s just been a very trying time for so many people where their lives are changing in so many unexpected ways,” Sarah says.

The duo have an arrangement with local florists who put cuttings on ice that would otherwise see the wastebin. For this creation, they repurposed the scraps from Manito Park that had been cut back for the season.

“We call it saving them because they were just going to die in that pile, which is a part of going back, but if we could give it a little more life, then that makes me happy,” Ava says.

There was an instant connection when the two met in May 2019, and they began creating flower bombs together—their creations would anonymously appear in parks across Spokane. Though the two still work in other parks occasionally, Polly Judd—with its gorgeous vistas and wild beauty—has become home for most of their noncommissioned creations. 

The two decided the art they were creating could be a business when they had a stone snake installation in the Wonder Building. A family was having a memorial service in the building the next day and asked if the snake could remain. At the service, family and friends laid flowers on the rocks. Later, when the family was spreading the ashes in Hayden Lake, they released the flowers as well.

“The flowers floated out onto the lake in the shape of a snake—the undercurrent pulled them out,” Ava says. “It just felt very special because it felt like the snake transformed into another thing.”

Alchemy is in their name because of the beauty found in transformation. They’ve been commissioned to do pieces—such as the cornucopia on display at River Park Square—and they also do work for special occasions, such as weddings. A friend was helping them with Rosita Bonita, and they had created a mandala for her wedding.

“Our process of letting go is not always easy,” Ava says. “There have been painful moments in that. I even remember at Maggie’s wedding the mandala we created we finished it just on time, and then we had to walk away.”