Lucy Goodson loves science, nature and the Southwest, but she absolutely adores old rocks.

Goodson, instructor of photography and printmaking at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, will be giving a talk and slide presentation today about the project she has been working on intermittently for the past 10 years.

Goodson is interested in the ancient art found on rocks in the Navajo Nation, which includes Arizona and Southern Utah.

The works from this exhibition, “The Water from an Ancient Well,” includes the rubbings from the pictographs and petroglyphs, or rock carvings that were created by the Anasazi Basketmaker II Indians.

Goodson heard reports from fellow scholars about the difficulties of shooting photos due to the flat lighting at the site, so she decided to try another method.

She used tracing paper and lithographic rubbing crayons as a way of bringing to life the images that are barely recognizable on the stones.

“It was in fact a happy accident when I discovered that the rubbings were visually superior to the colored photographs,” Goodson says in her artist’s statement.

She says the photographs that accompany this exhibition are a collection of portraits and landscapes, typifying her experiences of the Navajo Nation.

She hopes her artwork conveys the conflicting feelings she has whenever she visits the Navajo Nation.

“In my eyes, the vast landscape is timeless and majestic, and equally terrible,” Goodson says. “The portraits reflect nobility as well as a personal devastation. Every time I visit the area I am left with a contradictory sense of awe and despair.”

The photographs Goodson shot at the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, which accent her interest in the Mayan ruins, are on display.

A collective body of serigraph prints representing the bas-relief panels of the Hindu Temples of Bourabadour and Prambanan are included in the exhibit as well.

Theresa Cannon, program advisor of arts for the Student Union Board, says the exhibit is worth seeing.

“I know what impresses me about this work is [the] very powerful images,” Cannon says. “And they’re very large too.”

Goodson hopes to bring those powerful images to life through her work.

“What I’m hoping to do with my talk is personalize the imagery so they can understand what they’re seeing and get a sense of placement,” Goodson says.