On Saturday, January 21st, humans of all ages, colors, nationalities, and orientations marched in hordes to form the largest inaugural demonstration of disgust in American history. In DC and 500 cities across the United States, more than three million folks banned together to express myriad messages—and damn, did they bring some good signs. The creativity and cleverness displayed across the board was almost as inspiring as the messages themselves; that’s why art museums and organizations across the country are collecting the signs to put on display. Maine Historical Society is collecting them, too, but with a different goal in mind: The folks at MHS have recognized the reverberant potential of this event, and deemed it worth archiving for both its cultural and historical value.

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

The idea to collect leftover signs and protest material was a no-brainer for Kate McBrien, chief curator at Maine Historical Society, and Tilly Laskey, the center’s outreach coordinator. “Protests like this are obviously going to play a really important role in the next few years,” says McBrien. “They’ve been building and I can only see that growing over the next few years. So we wanted to be able to collect all the protest material we could find and document that grassroots movement, with the idea that it may play a big role in shaping future politics.

“As a historical society,” she continues, “we tend to look more at the human history of the state of Maine, and the political history of the state and how it relates to the nation. Protest is a huge part of that human history, and how Maine citizens and American citizens have made their voices heard within the political process. We wanted to document that citizen voice in the political process; that’s our goal in collecting them.”

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

At the Portland and Augusta marches, Maine citizens brought up a number of statewide concerns, one being water rights. “One of the speakers at the Augusta March was a woman of Wabanaki descent.” says McBrien. “She spoke about water rights and water access in reference to the Dakota pipeline, but she was also talking about water rights in Maine and how the Penobscots have had a long legal battle with the state of Maine for rights to the Penobscot River, which they believe is their ancestral home.”

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

“I don’t know if the Women’s March will become a movement,” McBrien speculates, “and that’s actually the wonderful thing about history: it informs us a bit, it helps us to expect what might happen in the future, but it’s still our future to create. So we’ll just have to kind of wait and see.”

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

The Women’s March signs are evidence that those who participated were the artists, the creatives, the lovers, the empathetic, and the passionate—a community that has faith in the power of unity and resistance. Come hell or high water (or tiny orange hands), these people are ready to make a decidedly yuge impact, and I’m mean absolutely yuge, you wouldn’t even believe how yuge. It’s incredible.

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society

Maine Historical Society will continue to collect signs from the Women’s March, as well as from marches to come.

The post #TakeAction: Sign of the Times appeared first on Take Magazine.

Artist and sculptor Sally B. Moore held a large, glorious, kinetic white bird high above the crowd. Its sign read, “When they go low, we go high,” and was a natural leader and point of reference, with throngs of people following it to the main stage—its wings gracefully arcing up and down and moving everyone forward.

Anya Vedmid and Scott Murry caught our eye as well, their yellow yelling tiger signs urging us to “Grab Back.” The group had spent the night before supporting women’s rights organizations by planning a fundraising art show at the Hatch Fenway. Vedmid and Murry’s signs were a standout; they’d also made some t-shirts and buttons. We talked about how people are getting excited about organizing, and finding creative ways to speak out. There will be more to come from The Grab Back as they start to #TakeAction.

Women’s March for America 2017, Boston | The Grab Back | Photograph by Henry Amistadi

It got crowded quickly. A press of people, but never oppressive or scary. Photographer Henry Amistadi and I positioned ourselves near the march’s Charles Street entrance, where he scrambled onto a granite post for a better view. We could see people pouring into the Common from all directions. Small talk came naturally and easily. Two older women had worn their mother’s coats along with their pussy hats. There was music—a New Orleans-style jazz band and an out-of-time tambourine—and many, many compliments in the air about people’s signs, pins, hats, and t-shirts. A tremendous feeling of camaraderie. I heard the words “This is amazing” over and over again.

Women’s March for America 2017, Boston | Photograph by Henry Amistadi

At some point a huge, homemade, multicolored balloon with the words “Rise Up” was bounced atop the crowd—a big hit on that unseasonably warm and cloudless day. Most agreed that we were ready to continue to be fired up, to protest and speak out about our “new normal.” I did see one unhappy group: inexplicably, four people with grumpy faces squirmed their way through the crowd in the opposite direction, mumbling “Freedom Trail” as they squeezed by. Tourists. I still don’t understand how they managed to do that.

There was lots of friendly banter, talk of this being the most hopeful we’d felt in weeks. Lots of chatter about us just getting started. By 2pm, people were ready to march, needed to get moving; we stood up against the iron fence and watched sign after magnificent, hilarious, poignant, emotional sign walk by and down the street. The public garden was especially beautiful, with groups of protesters dotted across the grass.

Women’s March for America 2017, Boston | Photograph by Henry Amistadi

The fight is on, the struggle is real. But with this crew, we’ll win. It felt like a perfect amount of people coming together, like all of my friends were there.

And they’re all your friends, too.

Photos by Henry Amistadi

The post #TakeAction – Come Together appeared first on Take Magazine.

Our hearts sank, listening to Trump’s inaugural speech. It was dark and bleak, not-so-subtly dissing Obama as he spoke of the current “carnage” in our country, while offering nothing remotely inspirational or unifying in return. But the massive outpouring of strength and hope across the world, and our little corner of it, has truly bolstered us. Montpelier, Vermont? Your march doubled the population of your entire city! Portsmouth, New Hampshire held two rallies, and the state hosted four more: Concord, Keene, Francestown, and Wilton. Thousands came together in front of the Rhode Island statehouse—they will not. be. silenced—and PVD’s Mayor Jorge O. Elorza took his talents and constituents to DC itself. There aren’t too many people out there tougher than Mainers; they gathered up and down the rocky coast in powerful numbers. A plentitude of pussy hats were seen across Connecticut, from Hartford to Stamford. In addition, 80 buses packed with Nutmeggers headed down to the nation’s capital to be heard. New England had at least 200,000 people get out for Women’s Marches in our big cities alone. Bravo!

Boston Women’s March, 10:30am | Photo by Henry Amistadi

What a sight—what an inspiring day! We all needed that. Take made the trip to Boston to witness and capture some of our most creative voices, which we’ll bring to you shortly. The enormity of this march can not be understated; it’s reaffirmed our commitment to featuring and amplifying, our cultural response to the political climate we now find ourselves in.

Optimism is billowing, strength is gathering, the artists are coming. . .and we’re listening.

Time to get to work.

Boston Women’s March | Photo by Henry Amistadi

All images by Henry Amistadi

The post #TakeAction New England Numbers appeared first on Take Magazine.