Just reading about the devastation and the death toll caused by the massive tsunami that struck southwestern Asia a year ago wasn’t enough for Nancy Lawson.

“I remember thinking that these people are going to become statistics, and I just felt I needed to see something other than a number in a newspaper article,” the 56-year-old Lawrence resident said.

Lawson then set out on what became a yearlong project to make her own memorial to the many thousands of victims. She glued together 300,000 toothpicks, mixed them with tree bark, shells and strands of wild weeds and shaped it all into a rippling, wavelike form.

The toothpicks were glued in a variety of ways, some in pairs to represent couples, and some in threes to represent families. She started making the toothpick memorial immediately after the tsunami struck on Dec. 26, 2004.

“I was making it because it was for me,” she said. “I wanted to be able to understand it, to wrap my mind and my heart around it. Every time I put one in place I’d say a prayer.”

Nancy Lawson, Lawrence, finds solace in creating toothpick sculptures in honor of disaster victims. Lawson is holding a piece she made from 6,000 toothpicks to remember people killed in the 9-11 attacks. After the tsunami struck southwest Asia a year ago, Lawson set out on what became a yearlong project to make her own memorial. She glued together 300,000 toothpicks and other items into a rippling, wavelike form, which is displayed behind her.

Lawson worked at her own pace, sitting on her living room floor, going through the boxes of toothpicks her husband, Lewis, purchased at stores.

“They (store employees) thought we owned a restaurant,” Lawson said with a chuckle.

She just finished her memorial about a week ago. It now sits displayed on top of a cabinet.

It is not the first memorial to disaster victims Lawson has made. On Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Lawson first struck upon the idea of using toothpicks to represent the victims of the trade center. Toothpicks were the most economical and sensible items, she said.

Lawson used 6,000 toothpicks (a figure taken from an early death toll estimate) and built them up into a pointed tower shape. She called her creation “Ascension,” because the toothpicks rise from an ashtray base as smoke would rise through a building.

Just recently Lawson began making a third memorial. This one is in honor of the victims of hurricanes Rita and Katrina. It has a cardboard base covered by felt, to represent the water. Some felt pieces are shaped like massive waves about to engulf toothpick structures representing houses. There are red “Xs” painted on the sides of the structures, the way houses with the dead were marked in New Orleans.

• Asia marks one year since tsunami swept away 216,000 lives

Lawson is disabled by a fibromyalgia, a crippling affliction of bones and muscles and which causes chronic fatigue. The disease struck her about seven years ago. In 1973 she was seriously injured when a car she was riding in was struck by a train. The driver, a man she was dating, was killed.

Lawson thinks her experience with disease and memories of the tragic wreck are behind her desire to pay recognition to victims of disasters.

“I think I know a little bit about what they went through,” she said.