Photograph by Toni Jourard, 1969
Thomas Hanna as Somatic Artist
“It falsifies the human significance of art to idealize it and set the phenomenon outside of our realm of possibilities. Artists are a natural social class set off from the charge of the human herd, which is increasingly stultified in its experience of living. Artists are a class apart that serves our happy purposes, producing reminders of ourselves.”
Thomas Hanna was a philosopher and writer of the body, and just as much an artist of it. He wrote poetry and prose, was a singer-songwriter, and sketched, painted, and sculpted. He saw artistic beauty in the human form, and the human form in everything around him.
In his own voice A selection of Thomas Hanna reading his own words, and singing.
Readings
Songs
Poetry
Early poem, date unknown
1988
Visual art
Cover of Somatics, Thomas Hanna as the Model. Photograph by Judith Selby. The body rendered as art.
Figure studies. Photographs by Toni Jourard, 1969.
Sketch by Thomas Hanna of his infant daughter, Wendell Hanna. Paris, 1961.