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On Ashby Avenue, one woman is paying tribute to the value of every human life by recording every death in Iraq. 

Since June, the woman—who wishes to remain anonymous because she said the identity of the war dead, rather than her identity, is what matters—has spent several hours a week compiling names of the fallen in the Iraq War and marking them on her front fence. 

Nobody is excluded from her memorial. The names of dead American marines bump up against Iraqi civilians, foreign nationals, and symbols representing the unnamed soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s army. 

The artist, who works as a retail clerk, was compelled to construct her monument after reading news accounts where the American or allied dead would get a brief biography, but Iraqi casualties would remain anonymous. 

“There seemed to be a real imbalance in valuing life,” she said. “It’s important to know their names and know they’re real people with families.” 

Her work is on display at 2231 Ashby Ave. As of Tuesday she had covered her fence with 37 cardboard panels filled with the names of the dead in illustrated tombstones. For Iraqi civilians that have not been identified, she marked their box on the panels as “unidentified civilian.” 

The memorial panels are spartan and posted haphazardly on her fence, but the artist said that is by design. 

“It’s not supposed to be a pretty display,” she said. “I wanted it to convey the sense of the chaos that is going on there.” 

Chronicling death has given her insight into the violent struggle in Iraq. She has had to add three panels since she debuted the memorial in June. In all, she said the total civilian and military deaths from the war number more than 12,000. 

The artist updates the wall every Wednesday. For the tally of Iraqi civilians killed she goes to IraqBodyCount.net, which keeps a running total, but doesn’t release names. To find out as many identities as she can, the artist surfs online news sources, and Iraqi political and social websites that often list casualties for various groups. 

From her hours of research of the war’s death stories, one in particular has stayed with her above the others: an account of an Iraqi man who was one of the few survivors of the accidental air bombardment of his grandchild’s wedding. 

“To think that he saw two generations of his family killed,” she said.  

The artist said she has gotten plenty of positive feedback on the memorial, and even received a note of praise from a passerby who happened to work for the Project on Defense Alternatives, her source for tallying the number of dead Iraqi soldiers. 

As the violence continues, the artist has decided to keep the memorial intact until the winter rains come. 

“I didn’t plan on having it up so long, but people are dying at such a rapid rate,” she said.›