Jody Pinto began her residency at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in 1977, the inaugural year of the institution. At this time, Pinto was known for her drawings, watercolors, and large-scale architectural works engaged with the environment, finding landscapes and street corners that could be made more functional through her interventions. In 1972, the artist founded the rape crisis center WOAR (Women Organized Against Rape) at Philadelphia General Hospital and served as its director until 1974.
Utilizing the medium of printed cloth to expand her practice, Pinto executed a garment to be worn, entitled Hair Shirt (1978). Created in an edition of five, Hair Shirt sought to depict a fleshy human torso by using a shirt fabricated from pigskin and synthetic satin, with images of body hair screen printed onto the armpits and chest. While a number of Pinto’s works featured anthropomorphized landscapes, exploring wounds and stitches, her project began with the idea of a landscape fitted into a garment. Pulling from her own landscape illustrations, cascading plants evolved in a print design evoking the look of body hair, giving it a large and unwieldy appearance.
Soon after her residency at FWM, Pinto began a 40-year teaching career at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) and participated in the 1979 Whitney Biennial and 1980 Venice Biennale. Other works by Pinto created in Philadelphia include Fingerspan, a footbridge in Wissahickon Valley Park which was completed in 1987, and the more recent Land Buoy (2014) which marks the pier where her grandparents—both Italian immigrants—first arrived in the United States. Hair Shirt can be found in FWM’s collection, as well as in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
