Thomas Hutton

Vice President & Director, Chemed

Search every verified Thomas Hutton interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Thomas Hutton, an artist and cofounder of Seeld Library, led a guided tour along the periphery of MOCA Grand in September 2018. During the tour, he described the museum's exterior, which is clad in 54,000 square feet of Dholpur red sandstone from India, noting that the sandstone blocks were split by hand and attached to concrete walls with strap anchors. He discussed the material's properties, including its split-face texture and warm red hues, and connected the sandstone's color to the iron oxide content, which he said is also used in steel production. Hutton's commentary ranged across topics including the hardness of the sandstone on Mohs scale, the etymology of the word "genus," and the history of date palms, referencing Phoenician traders and the binomial term Phoenix dactylifera. He also mentioned the unfinished pyramid and eye on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, describing it as a Masonic symbol printed on the dollar bill, and linked the durability of stone to the permanence of tooth enamel and the use of date palm fibers in traditional toothbrushes.