About Evolve The Conversation people have said:
“Making art often requires us to spend vast amounts of time in isolation; yet, embedded within all artists is the impulse towards communication and communion. ETC poses a solution to that paradox. The salons allow all who participate to receive art, respond to art, and use art as a means to regenerate.”-Rachel Basch, Novelist
“Evolve the Conversation is a project that transcends borders, opening the artist in all of us. I became interested in ETC because I believe in the joy of discussing what truly matters, what sustains us and changes us. What could be better than starting a conversation with three world-class artists and taking it from there? I can't imagine.”-Kim Bridgford, Award-winning Poet/ Chief Editor Mezzo Cammin / Director of WCPC
“Listening to and interacting with world acclaimed artists, musicians, writers as they tell us what energy underlies their inspirational journeys helped me move into a new perspective. I do not recall anything as uniquely powerful as ETC for changing my frame of reference.”-Joe Carvalko, Corporate Entertainment Attorney/ Novelist
“Wow! It's so beautifully done. So deftly edited–the highest of production value. Love this! Thank you for involving me!”-Da Chen, N.Y. Times best-selling Novelist
“Our essence is fading quickly in a technology mesh. We need to learn how to balance the immense aid that these advances represent with the core of our soul and true human nature. ETC is the nonconformist alternative that still believes we can merge these two realities positively. This may be the biggest challenge the 21st Century has brought along with it. To do this we have to communicate with one of our most powerful tools... THE WORD... we need to talk, we need to listen, we need to connect with each other, we need to Evolve the Conversation and make this our vehicle to a more fulfilled and balanced existence.”- Yisel Duque, Singer Songwriter
“I'm involved with ETC because, simply, it's time to bring conversation—that admixture of sound and silence, talking and listening—to a higher level. It's easy to complain about everything that is wrong, and much harder to be the proverbial change you want to see. By engaging in honest dialogue with others and introspection with the self, perhaps we will achieve that elusive transcendence that we've been talking about for so long.”-Kim Dana Kupperman, Essayist/ Publisher
“For a business woman who spends her life in facts, figures, bullets and spreadsheets, ETC is like a spa for the soul. Every speaker and artist opens my mind, heart and spirit. ETC is the boost we all need to renew and free ourselves. I can't wait for the next one!”-Kristin C. Peck, Executive Vice President Worldwide Business Development & Innovation Pfizer Inc.
“I am thrilled to be part of what I consider to be a most important movement…Evolve The Conversation! It is a congregation of souls coming together to dance, to laugh, to cry and to celebrate our being! I feel this movement growing and touching hearts all over the world.”-Marlon Saunders, Academy Award-nominated Vocalist/ International Recording Artist
“I often move too quickly, so lucky to have so much to move through, but also a regret - for conversation and communication is the essence of life and really the innovator of our future and the future of our children. Evolve The Conversation is this innovation. It offers the kind of inspiration and spiritual wealth we need as a global community for ourselves and our children.”-Shannon Tolar Tchkotoua, US Associate Publisher, Conde Nast International
“In a world where people, text, twitter, and email, it is truly important that we make the effort to connect with one another in person. It is in a context of real community where life happens”-Brian Torff, Grammy-winning Bassist/ Composer/ Music Program Director at FU
“Our thoughts create our words; our words create our reality. I tell my children almost daily to watch what they say because their words are literally like brushes that paint the canvas of their lives. I believe that our planet is at a crossroads and we MUST now rise up, unite and courageously live and SPEAK our divine truths. ETC empowers us to do that and inspires other to do the same. What more is there to say?”-Founder & Director for UNITE and Ashe Collection
“ETC is human interaction at its best - honest, insightful, slightly risky and fun. ETC, through its proven framework for the delivery of unique content, is a catalyst to meaningful connection.”-David Wells, Partner Ernst & Young LLP
“That ETC is poised to go global suggests that this fierce idea is ready to become part of the daily weather of our times.”- Terri Witek, Ph.D., Award-winning Poet/ Department Head
“It has been especially moving to be involved in the ETC salons… In the structure of the salons, Liminality, Paper Roads and Synchronicity are not just words but ways in which we can think about how we navigate and articulate life experience and respond to one another as fellow artists, thinkers and travelers.”-Jo Yarrington, Fine Artist
“So much in our technological age seems geared toward making people more comfortable in their isolation (and we isolated creatures take ready comfort in this). The danger is that our capacity to transcend isolation--to come together in community, to speak meaningfully with each other, will be greatly diminished. Evolve the Conversation has come about at a crucial moment, just when the connective tissue of our lives seems most frayed. Time accorded to contemplation and to the serious exchange of ideas (for the sake of the ideas alone!) is the most perishable time we have. Everything else seems to take precedence over it. ETC restores the art of conversation to its vital place as a cornerstone of culture.”-David Yezzi, Executive Editor, The New Criterion