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 Lines: 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.