Artwork Details
- Title
- Fingerspan
- Artist
- Jody Pinto (b. 1942)
- Year
- 1987
- Medium
- Weathering steel
- Dimensions
- Height 9′ (interior 7′ 3″); width 4′ 10″ (interior 3′ 3″); length 59′
Artwork Description
“It’s one of the most breathtaking points along the Wissahickon,” artist Jody Pinto said of the gorge south of Livezey Dam. A span once served to get people across the gorge; when it deteriorated, the Park Commission retro-fitted and installed a staircase from an old ship. To replace the stairs, Pinto designed Fingerspan, an outgrowth of Association for Public Art’s (then known as Fairmount Park Art Association) Form and Function project.
Pinto, born in New York, grew up in a family of artists and photographers. Many of her works use imagery from the human body. “For me,” she says, “the body is the central source of information, of everything we understand, everything we see.” In Fingerspan, her first permanent outdoor installation in the United States, she wanted to link the human body with the natural environment in such a way that viewers themselves, passing through the work, would help to establish the connection.
The artist considered issues of safety, security, and durability. The steel covering is perforated with 1/2″ holes to prevent people from falling or climbing over the edge, while allowing a view of the spectacular gorge below. The deck is made of steel bar grating and is designed to sustain a load of 100 pounds per square foot. The entire 18,000-pound construction is made of weathering steel that forms a protective coat of rust when exposed to the elements over time. As a reviewer commented, the bridge looks as if it has been in place since the days of the Lenni Lenape Indians.
Samuel Harris of the firm Kieran Timberlake and Harris, who served as architect and engineer for the project, collaborated in developing the concept into a practical structure. The span was fabricated in sections and installed by helicopter. A grant from the Art in Public Places Program of the National Endowment for the Arts supplemented funds from the Association, and the work was donated to the City of Philadelphia.
Content on this page was adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, 1992). Bach was the longtime Executive Director of the Association for Public Art, working with the organization from 1980 to 2022.
About the Artist
Internationally known for her creative integration of art into architecture and landscape, Jody Pinto lives and works in New York City. She has completed nearly forty collaborative projects in the United States, Israel and Japan since 1975. They include a wide range of master-planning, functional elements, landscape interventions, free standing and integrated structural elements. She has received numerous awards and grants including the NEA; Federal Design Achievement Award; National Design for Transportation Award; A.I.A. Honor Award ” Art in Public Spaces ” and two National ASLA Design Honor Awards. Her drawings are in numerous private and public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Des Moines Art Center in Iowa; the Denver Art Museum; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.
Artwork Credits
Commissioned by Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
JODY PINTO is the artist who created Fingerspan. She is a former professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and is known for her work in public spaces. She has received awards from the American Institute of Architects and the American Society for Landscape Architects.
DIANA GOMEZ is a first grade teacher at Germantown Friends School. She has brought her young students to Fingerspan to experience the joy of passing through the sculpture.
JULIE COURTNEY is an independent curator in Philadelphia who has known artist Jody Pinto for over 30 years.
Producer: Bruce Wallace