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Front Lines: A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance
Art can be more dangerous than words—especially when it marches, masks up, and takes to the streets.
Front A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance is a vivid, image-rich memoir and archive chronicling six decades of Susan Simensky Bietila’s life as a movement artist, agitator, and cultural conspirator. From underground newspapers of the 1960s to Indigenous-led water protection actions and puppet-filled protest marches of today, Bietila has never stopped making trouble—or making art.
Rejecting the elitist, male-dominated art world, Bietila came of age in the McCarthy era. She embraced feminist, collaborative, and radically democratic forms of creativity. Her political posters, comics, protest banners, masks, and giant puppets have armed countless front lines of struggle. Her art has appeared in the pages of World War 3 Illustrated and RAT Subterranean News and is wheat-pasted worldwide in the streets.
With over one hundred images, eleven comics, and a deeply insightful narrative context, Front Lines is both a blueprint for artists who want to fuel social movements and a testament to the enduring power of art made in, with, and for resistance.
Front A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance is a vivid, image-rich memoir and archive chronicling six decades of Susan Simensky Bietila’s life as a movement artist, agitator, and cultural conspirator. From underground newspapers of the 1960s to Indigenous-led water protection actions and puppet-filled protest marches of today, Bietila has never stopped making trouble—or making art.
Rejecting the elitist, male-dominated art world, Bietila came of age in the McCarthy era. She embraced feminist, collaborative, and radically democratic forms of creativity. Her political posters, comics, protest banners, masks, and giant puppets have armed countless front lines of struggle. Her art has appeared in the pages of World War 3 Illustrated and RAT Subterranean News and is wheat-pasted worldwide in the streets.
With over one hundred images, eleven comics, and a deeply insightful narrative context, Front Lines is both a blueprint for artists who want to fuel social movements and a testament to the enduring power of art made in, with, and for resistance.
232 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 10, 2026
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February 18, 2026
[See my different review in the upcoming Spring 2026 issue of Fifth Estate.]
Bietila documents a relationship with anarchism that is experiential and practical in confronting the establishment on various fronts—praxis over theory. She recalls exposure to anarchist politics during a 1967 trip to Amsterdam connecting with members of the Provo anarchist youth movement known for creative street demonstrations, squatting, and what Hakim Bey later termed “temporary autonomous zones.” This model of public art, anti-authoritarianism, collaboration, and anti-bureaucracy shaped her understanding of catalyzing change with accessible political art.
Throughout this memoir, she consistently resists hierarchy, elitism, and sectarianism within Left organizations by embracing consensus-based collectivism, as in the women’s takeover of RAT. Her activism favors affinity groups, direct action, and creative disruption. In this way, her protest participation reflects core anarchist practices as she moved fluidly among New Left, feminist, antiwar, and community struggles in a lived ethic that is anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, collaborative, and rooted in direct action.
Building on a direct involvement direction and acknowledging the bodily risk it entails, Bietila relates in the chapter “Becoming a Nurse” attaining RN status and joining the Medical Committee for Human Rights Baltimore chapter, explaining “Ambulance units are not permitted to enter an area where there is active conflict going on, so activists who are medical professionals or have been trained to provide first aid are an important part of demonstrations. It is a special skill to handle injuries from confrontations between demonstrators and police, a skill not taught in medical or nursing schools.” Banners and photos recount here involvement with the MCHR and “the five-month Indigenous cross-country march from Alcatraz Island to Washington, DC, demanding that Indigenous treaty rights be recognized…” A rather eerie drawing shows another event Bietila supported as a medic, “the 1977 demonstration of Iranian students against the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on an official visit to Washington, DC. They wore masks to protect their families in Iran from retribution…” The haunting paper masks are recalled in artwork.
Bietila encourages the reader to get off the sidelines with specific pointers on practical techniques. She is not merely documenting, promoting, or decorating. Her art participates and amplifies and Bietila provides guidance to do same. As observed by Cris Siqueira, cartoonist and co-owner of Lions Tooth Bookstore:
"Front Lines isn't just the fascinating memoir of force-of-nature cartoonist, painter, and activist Susan Simensky Bietila, it is also a handy manual for anyone looking for inspiration on how to align their artistic practice with their political ideals in a truly meaningful way. Absolute essential reading for those of us who want to use our creative power to enact change in the real world."
Bietila works “across many different media, including stencils, paint, block printing, ink on scratchboard or silkscreen, cardboard, cloth, papier-mâché, and photography-whatever suits the project.” Practical tips and advice are taken from puppet and costume protests and we readers are gifted with simple, practical directions on the making of a cardboard sturgeon: “…first, the pieces are cut, scored, and folded. Next, they are fixed in place, joined using a sword stapler, masking tape, and wood glue, and then covered in places with papier-mâché. Bicycle boxes are nice and big sources for materials.” The straightforward mud stencil can inspire just like the literally illustrative cantastoria presentation method. Painting, drawing, and illustration tips include a group project like that undertaken for the "Whose Schools" banner. “We tape the fabric to the wall and project the art with an LED projector from a laptop. The image is traced with chalk or pencil onto the fabric and then placed on a table for the group to paint. We provide a color picture as a painting guide.” Other techniques include woodblock and other printmaking methods often accomplished as a collaborative group. This includes linocut prints of the style I saw (and purchased) when Bread & Puppet Theatre visited my area. Scratchboard art, murals, and posters add to approaches such as the outdoor installation to protest cyanide in mining as part of “Tombstones at the Wisconsin Capitol”. Working with The Milwaukee Mining Impact Coalition taught Bietila “about the dangers of mining metallic sulfide ore…” From a list of rivers poisoned by mining worldwide the group “made a mobile graveyard, with tombstones dedicated to these rivers. The group scavenged wires from election signs and recycled bicycle-box cardboard. With the group's research, I came up with motifs reflecting the location of these rivers in the world….” Thus, an art build comes together.
As a mother, Bietila directly participates with a second generation. “In 1996, my sixteen-year-old younger son, Smitty, told me that he was going to Active Resistance (AR), an international anarchist gathering being held in Chicago that he had read about in the Fifth Estate… Smitty wanted to help make giant puppets with David Solnit, a California activist who was leading what is now called an art build. With all the risks I'd taken and close calls I'd had when I was young, the overprotective mother mode kicked in with a vengeance. So I went to AR too and brought several friends from the UWM street theater group. The gathering was much more than an art build. It was a weeklong event with workshops and strategizing sessions, delicious vegan meals, and mass camping inside a closed spice factory. My son was right. It was wonderful. …Giant puppets became a worldwide phenomenon during the time of the antiglobalization movement.”
In the closing chapters of Front Lines: A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance, Susan Bietila shifts to the most recent waves of grassroots organizing in Wisconsin, especially those centered on water protection, Indigenous sovereignty, and resistance to irresponsible fossil fuel practices.
In “Love Water, Not Oil,” Bietila documents protests against Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which threatens the Great Lakes and tribal lands. Activists organized marches, banner drops, and prayer-led gatherings in partnership with Anishinaabe water protectors. The actions emphasized treaty rights, responsible environmental stewardship, and nonviolent civil resistance. Artists played a visible role creating signs, large-scale graphics, and other public imagery. The protests connected to movements like Standing Rock, reinforcing a regional network of Indigenous-led resistance. The sturgeon seen on the cover arose during this period after an initial version lacked the impressive fish. (Compare the cover version of the artwork that that shown on pages 87and 177.) The evolution of the piece arose from an interaction between artists, activists, and community that is a collaborative dialogue of experience sharing. Bietila explains,
…respected Indigenous educator Mark Denning asked me, “Where are the sturgeon?” As a member of the Menominee Sturgeon Clan, Mark explained the cultural and historical significance of this aquatic behemoth that is virtually unchanged from the age of the dinosaurs.
In “The Long Haul,” she reflects on sustained opposition to environment degrading extractive projects such as the Back Forty Mine near the Menominee River. Protest actions included encampments, public hearings, rallies, and legal advocacy. Here, the emphasis was not only on halting a single project but on building long-term, community-based resistance rooted in treaty law, environmental science, and intergenerational activism.
Bietila portrays efforts and the art produced during the struggles as a lifelong continuum of resistance where art, solidarity, and direct action are central tools in confronting environmental and social injustice.
Most recent protest actions documented here exhibit:
• Strong Indigenous leadership and treaty-based arguments
• Defense of water as not only essential but sacred
• Creative visual resistance with posters, street theater, banners, and more
• Coalitions between environmentalists, community, labor, and tribal nations
• A commitment to nonviolent, memorable, enlightening demonstrations
Bietila documents a relationship with anarchism that is experiential and practical in confronting the establishment on various fronts—praxis over theory. She recalls exposure to anarchist politics during a 1967 trip to Amsterdam connecting with members of the Provo anarchist youth movement known for creative street demonstrations, squatting, and what Hakim Bey later termed “temporary autonomous zones.” This model of public art, anti-authoritarianism, collaboration, and anti-bureaucracy shaped her understanding of catalyzing change with accessible political art.
Throughout this memoir, she consistently resists hierarchy, elitism, and sectarianism within Left organizations by embracing consensus-based collectivism, as in the women’s takeover of RAT. Her activism favors affinity groups, direct action, and creative disruption. In this way, her protest participation reflects core anarchist practices as she moved fluidly among New Left, feminist, antiwar, and community struggles in a lived ethic that is anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, collaborative, and rooted in direct action.
Building on a direct involvement direction and acknowledging the bodily risk it entails, Bietila relates in the chapter “Becoming a Nurse” attaining RN status and joining the Medical Committee for Human Rights Baltimore chapter, explaining “Ambulance units are not permitted to enter an area where there is active conflict going on, so activists who are medical professionals or have been trained to provide first aid are an important part of demonstrations. It is a special skill to handle injuries from confrontations between demonstrators and police, a skill not taught in medical or nursing schools.” Banners and photos recount here involvement with the MCHR and “the five-month Indigenous cross-country march from Alcatraz Island to Washington, DC, demanding that Indigenous treaty rights be recognized…” A rather eerie drawing shows another event Bietila supported as a medic, “the 1977 demonstration of Iranian students against the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on an official visit to Washington, DC. They wore masks to protect their families in Iran from retribution…” The haunting paper masks are recalled in artwork.
Bietila encourages the reader to get off the sidelines with specific pointers on practical techniques. She is not merely documenting, promoting, or decorating. Her art participates and amplifies and Bietila provides guidance to do same. As observed by Cris Siqueira, cartoonist and co-owner of Lions Tooth Bookstore:
"Front Lines isn't just the fascinating memoir of force-of-nature cartoonist, painter, and activist Susan Simensky Bietila, it is also a handy manual for anyone looking for inspiration on how to align their artistic practice with their political ideals in a truly meaningful way. Absolute essential reading for those of us who want to use our creative power to enact change in the real world."
Bietila works “across many different media, including stencils, paint, block printing, ink on scratchboard or silkscreen, cardboard, cloth, papier-mâché, and photography-whatever suits the project.” Practical tips and advice are taken from puppet and costume protests and we readers are gifted with simple, practical directions on the making of a cardboard sturgeon: “…first, the pieces are cut, scored, and folded. Next, they are fixed in place, joined using a sword stapler, masking tape, and wood glue, and then covered in places with papier-mâché. Bicycle boxes are nice and big sources for materials.” The straightforward mud stencil can inspire just like the literally illustrative cantastoria presentation method. Painting, drawing, and illustration tips include a group project like that undertaken for the "Whose Schools" banner. “We tape the fabric to the wall and project the art with an LED projector from a laptop. The image is traced with chalk or pencil onto the fabric and then placed on a table for the group to paint. We provide a color picture as a painting guide.” Other techniques include woodblock and other printmaking methods often accomplished as a collaborative group. This includes linocut prints of the style I saw (and purchased) when Bread & Puppet Theatre visited my area. Scratchboard art, murals, and posters add to approaches such as the outdoor installation to protest cyanide in mining as part of “Tombstones at the Wisconsin Capitol”. Working with The Milwaukee Mining Impact Coalition taught Bietila “about the dangers of mining metallic sulfide ore…” From a list of rivers poisoned by mining worldwide the group “made a mobile graveyard, with tombstones dedicated to these rivers. The group scavenged wires from election signs and recycled bicycle-box cardboard. With the group's research, I came up with motifs reflecting the location of these rivers in the world….” Thus, an art build comes together.
As a mother, Bietila directly participates with a second generation. “In 1996, my sixteen-year-old younger son, Smitty, told me that he was going to Active Resistance (AR), an international anarchist gathering being held in Chicago that he had read about in the Fifth Estate… Smitty wanted to help make giant puppets with David Solnit, a California activist who was leading what is now called an art build. With all the risks I'd taken and close calls I'd had when I was young, the overprotective mother mode kicked in with a vengeance. So I went to AR too and brought several friends from the UWM street theater group. The gathering was much more than an art build. It was a weeklong event with workshops and strategizing sessions, delicious vegan meals, and mass camping inside a closed spice factory. My son was right. It was wonderful. …Giant puppets became a worldwide phenomenon during the time of the antiglobalization movement.”
In the closing chapters of Front Lines: A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance, Susan Bietila shifts to the most recent waves of grassroots organizing in Wisconsin, especially those centered on water protection, Indigenous sovereignty, and resistance to irresponsible fossil fuel practices.
In “Love Water, Not Oil,” Bietila documents protests against Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which threatens the Great Lakes and tribal lands. Activists organized marches, banner drops, and prayer-led gatherings in partnership with Anishinaabe water protectors. The actions emphasized treaty rights, responsible environmental stewardship, and nonviolent civil resistance. Artists played a visible role creating signs, large-scale graphics, and other public imagery. The protests connected to movements like Standing Rock, reinforcing a regional network of Indigenous-led resistance. The sturgeon seen on the cover arose during this period after an initial version lacked the impressive fish. (Compare the cover version of the artwork that that shown on pages 87and 177.) The evolution of the piece arose from an interaction between artists, activists, and community that is a collaborative dialogue of experience sharing. Bietila explains,
…respected Indigenous educator Mark Denning asked me, “Where are the sturgeon?” As a member of the Menominee Sturgeon Clan, Mark explained the cultural and historical significance of this aquatic behemoth that is virtually unchanged from the age of the dinosaurs.
In “The Long Haul,” she reflects on sustained opposition to environment degrading extractive projects such as the Back Forty Mine near the Menominee River. Protest actions included encampments, public hearings, rallies, and legal advocacy. Here, the emphasis was not only on halting a single project but on building long-term, community-based resistance rooted in treaty law, environmental science, and intergenerational activism.
Bietila portrays efforts and the art produced during the struggles as a lifelong continuum of resistance where art, solidarity, and direct action are central tools in confronting environmental and social injustice.
Most recent protest actions documented here exhibit:
• Strong Indigenous leadership and treaty-based arguments
• Defense of water as not only essential but sacred
• Creative visual resistance with posters, street theater, banners, and more
• Coalitions between environmentalists, community, labor, and tribal nations
• A commitment to nonviolent, memorable, enlightening demonstrations
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