Prometheus
In 2023, Caroline Landau and Madison Sankovitz traveled to Nevada to locate the remnants of Prometheus, a bristlecone pine tree. Until its felling in 1964, it was the oldest known living organism on Earth at over 5,000 years old. Using 3D scanning and mold-making techniques, Landau captured the textures of the tree’s remnants—a cutting left untouched for decades—and recreated it in glass. This glass piece preserves Prometheus in its current state. It critiques the human impulse to dominate and dissect nature, reminding us of the irreversible loss of something far older than ourselves.
We hiked up to a snow-covered ridge in Great Basin National Park and partially excavated the ancient stump of Prometheus. We uncovered its smooth rings marking thousands of years of life. The journey to find Prometheus, hidden at 10,000 feet in the remote wilderness, was the culmination of months of research and determination. Amid towering peaks and crisp alpine air, we spent hours documenting the stump’s details, marveling at its enduring beauty and the perspective it offers on time and resilience.
Instead of bringing moldmaking materials and contaminating the space, we made a 3D scan of a part of Prometheus that was lying next to the stump. Landau worked with a 3D printing company in Oakland to create a replica of the piece.
Landau created a silicone negative from the 3D print, which she then used to create a wax positive. Then, she made a plaster-silica negative mold around the wax and steamed it out, creating a vacant hole, the blow mold. She pre-heated it to 1000 degrees over 24 hours and blew glass into it.
The piece was complete after it was cold-worked.
