A Scribbler Among Scribblers – Angel with a Permanent Marker, Whiskey, and Umbrella

We begin our exploration in a corner of the city, where a sentence adorns a wall, and the municipality responds with plexiglass. Here, we encounter 'the scribbler’s scribbler' — the enigmatic figure who writes with spray, stencils, and timing, sparking a collision between the clean-up crew and the department of culture at dawn. We structure our narrative around him: The King of Graffiti, The Stencil’s Ghostwriter, Shakespeare of Spray, Municipal Decorator, Freelance — and the three questions that pierce through everything: “If it’s graffiti—why do you frame it?” “I don’t paint walls, I ask questions on them.” “The city wrote first. I only add the underlining.”

But the text is larger than a masked master. We follow the market’s logic as self-destruction becomes refinement and a paper shredder at auction turns refusal into more sales. We step into the ladies’ room where a girl with ironic angel wings is caught with a permanent marker in her hand, and the myth that “girls don’t scribble” cracks like a line of grout. We look for the traces rarely catalogued: stickers, fabric, wheatpaste, quick retorts at eye level — the same impulse, different logistics.

Thus, this essay is a testament to how the city can be deciphered like a book, where the margins often hold the key. It illustrates how the language of power can be deflated, how the materials of everyday life can resonate like poetry if listened to keenly, and how underlining becomes a way to claim ownership of one’s own perspective. And when we reach the origin — the hand’s stencil against the rock wall, the pigment blown across it — we should remember that the method predates the city plan and perhaps, in its infancy, was nurtured by women’s hands.

Join me, then, as we embark on a captivating journey through the portal of this essay to explore not only the language of love and desire but also how art encodes passion, power, and play. Together, we will examine their historical significance and cultural influence, and in doing so, uncover the timeless wonder of how human emotions are evoked, hinted at, and set in motion, much like the push of a swing.

“Hand in the Cave, Door in the City

At the cave’s dark end, she steadies in the cold,
a Neanderthal woman—patient, fierce, and bold;
palm to the limestone, hollow bone to lip,
she blows ochre dust in one deliberate sip.

A negative hand—her luminous, missing part—
a stencil of absence, a pulse becomes an art;
It murmurs, Read me. Here a body stood,
and time begins to echo through the wood.

We cross by bridges, angles schooling air:
stone arches, iron ribs, cables’ tensile snare;
each spans a sentence tightened over tide,
each shadowed truss is a clause the city hides.

On soot-kissed walls, the night composes signs—
a rat with a balloon, a wink that undermines;
not edicts—questions where the orders sit,
the city’s text, and someone underlining it.

The bridges end in tile and mirror glare,
warm blower winds, and mouths that learn to stare;
a door—a girl’s quick hand, a marker’s hiss—
Two wings flare up; the message reads like this:

Girls scribble. This room is also a street.
The city wrote first— I underline its beat.

From cave to stall, one breath across the years,
the same fine spray of courage fogs our fears;
What started as a hand’s red, vanished star
returns as a script that says who, where we are.”
Malmö. September 2025

A Scribbler Among Scribblers – Angel with a Permanent Marker, Whiskey, and Umbrella

The image depicts the underground of graffiti, and in this case, it’s unlikely that the scribbler herself sees her work as anything more than just scribbling—i.e., not part of what we call ‘Street Art’. The term 'scribbler' in the context of graffiti culture often carries a derogatory connotation, implying amateurish or unskilled work. This term is significant as it reflects the societal perception of graffiti as a form of vandalism rather than art. And she’s probably mistaken if she hopes to attract boys to the stall, because this is the ladies’ room and men aren’t permitted in there.

Would Banksy be insulted if you called him a scribbler? Hardly. The individual possesses both self-awareness and a sense of humour. But to be on the safe side, I’ll appoint him “the scribbler’s scribbler” or “the uncrowned emperor of graffiti.”

In British English, “scribbler” is often used self-deprecatingly or playfully (similar to “scrawler”), but it can sound condescending if said with a sneer. Banksy’s entire approach is to turn such labels against the system; he creates art out of being called a vandal. If you say “a scribbler among scribblers” as a deliberate, tough compliment—and with that line about the plexiglass in mind—it reads more like a title than an insult.

Some graffiti writers seek visibility, while others aim to stay unnoticed—and end up becoming world-famous for it. “The scribbler’s scribbler” is the type of poet who uses spray paint, stencils, and timing. He’s the person who convinced municipalities to cover “the scribble” with plexiglass because it’s now valued in millions, not fines. The paradox is the point: when the city frames the wall, it exposes its own desire for what it initially called vandalism, challenging our perceptions and understanding of authority.

The King of Graffiti.

He rules the only kingdom that actually grows the more you try to eradicate it. Rail embankments, bricks, concrete—territories where language is usually reduced to prohibition signs and parking lines. In his realm, the traffic light becomes a punchline, the construction fence a bookmark, the street a stage. The King of Graffiti knows that power always seeks to define what is “clean” and what is “dirty.” He overturns the definition: cleanliness is silence; dirt is conversation. And conversation is precisely what he cultivates—short, sharp interventions that slice through the air like a trumpet blast, empowering us to challenge the city's power structures. This concept of the 'King of Graffiti' is significant as it highlights the subversive power of street art in challenging and redefining societal norms and power structures.

When the municipality arrives with the pressure washer, the cultural administration presents an appraisal. It’s the same wall, but told from two different perspectives. The King of Graffiti doesn’t need to “win”—it’s enough for him to reveal the split between those stories.

The Stencil’s Ghostwriter.

The stencil is his signature without a name: an alphabet of shadows that can be unfolded and refolded in seconds, a literature of voids. The stencil writes like a ghostwriter: it speaks through absence, and what’s missing becomes the image itself. It also signifies that his aesthetic is democratic. It can be imitated, multiplied, put on tote bags and coffee mugs. But where the copy becomes a souvenir, the original remains a moment in the city—the specific wall, the specific crack, the specific cone of a streetlamp, inviting everyone to be part of the art's narrative, making us all feel included and part of the story.

The ghostwriter understands that anonymity is a tool. It creates a space for the reader to step into. Who is speaking? Why here? Why now? All good mysteries begin in a corner of a wall.

Shakespeare of Spray.

There’s an economical style in advertising, and then there’s the poetry of spray. The spray flows like a monologue—one breath, one clause, one punchline. “Shakespeare” isn’t just a nod to the canon but to the skill of distilling the world into a line that stays in the mind. A rat with an umbrella, a cop hugging a heart-shaped balloon: simple roles, deeply human conflicts.

Shakespeare of Spray also has an eye for scenography. He understands where the audience will stand, at what angle the streetlight will fall, and how the bus shelter reflects. He doesn’t just write the text—he directs the reader.

Municipal Decorator, Freelance.

One of his funniest jokes is working for free for those who have a budget for everything except humour. When the city wakes up to a wall that has suddenly sprouted an idea overnight, two bureaucracies clash: cleanup and culture. Suddenly, flaking plaster and graffiti become a “site-specific installation,” and someone orders plexiglass. The municipal logic is exposed: what was once dangerous is now a tourist attraction—so long as the price is right.

He freelances, but never on a commission basis. It’s precisely the refusal to take assignments that turns the commissioner into a co-actor. The city responds by adding protective sheets, running cordons, and putting up signs—and all of that becomes part two of the piece.

“If it’s graffiti—why do you frame it?”

The question is brilliant because it requires no answer. The frame itself is the answer. When you frame something, you’re saying, 'This carries significance.' The plexiglass, the screws, the press release—everything that isn’t “the art” becomes an apparatus pointing: “Look.” The same hand that holds the toothbrush now bears the certificate of authenticity.

The market loves contradictions. That auction stunt where the work shredded itself wasn’t a scandal for the market—it was the market at its most exhilarating. Self-destruction became refinement. A perfect mirror: art that refuses becomes even more saleable precisely because refusal is rare.

“I don’t paint walls, I ask questions on them.”

That is precisely how text functions in public space. It raises questions whose answers are usually given beforehand. “Walk here.” “Buy this.” “No parking.” In opposition, he introduces his own question marks. Who decides what is allowed to be seen? Whose voice is audible on the wall? What occurs when we interpret the city like a newspaper instead of a manual?

The questions open small trapdoors in everyday life. The commuter who has no time suddenly finds time. The child passing by sees that the world can be rewritten. A wall can become a sentence, a sentence can become a discussion, and the debate can become a different way of living in one’s city.

“The city wrote first. I only add the underlining.”

Perhaps this is the most modest—and most radical—self-description. The wall existed before us, bearing a history of rain, posters, campaign placards, carved initials, and patches of plaster. He emphasises: highlights a crack, a blind spot, a fleeting moment. The underlying doesn’t claim to encompass everything—it points to what is already there.

Underlining is also a method of citizenship. When we underline something in a book, we become co-authors of our own reading. When he underlines the city, we become citizens of our own gaze. That’s the difference between residing and living.

The 'scribbler’s scribbler' is therefore more an attitude than a person: a stubborn belief that meaning can emerge in the most unlikely places. He demonstrates how the language of power can be drained of vitality, how the materials of everyday life—concrete, rules, habits—can sound like poetry if you listen closely. Municipalities screw up plexiglass; the market writes checks; tourists take selfies. And the works? They keep appearing where they do the most good: right at the corner of your eye, where laughter begins at the exact moment as thought.

Yes, it’s graffiti. However, it is also underscored in the margins of our everyday life. And sometimes it’s the margin that saves the text.

I return to the image of the girls in the ladies’ room—the one with angel wings caught red-handed with a permanent marker, the paint on the restroom door barely dry. Angel wings, because the common notion is that girls don’t scribble. Is that true?

The wings seem as if a pastor had painted them as an act of absolution, yet they are ironic—she stands there with the marker in her hand, and the paint on the door has hardly had time to dry. It’s a moment that sticks: the myth of the good girl, porcelain-bright, has just been written across the tiles. “Girls don’t scribble.” Is that true? No. It’s just that when girls have scribbled, it’s been called something else—or no one has bothered to collect the evidence.

Graffiti and street culture have long been portrayed as a boys’ adventure: nocturnal rail yards, fence-climbing, caps, and crews. This narrative influences which risks are considered significant. For boys: fines, guards, trains. For girls: all of that—plus the risk of being questioned, belittled, hassled, or followed. What emerges is not the absence of desire, but the presence of other risks. However, despite these challenges, women have left their traces in various forms of public writing: on bathroom walls, lockers, mirror edges, stickers, thread and textiles, wheatpaste, and small poetic underlinings at eye level. It's the same impulse, but with different logistics. This is not a story of absence, but a story of empowerment and resilience.

And yet, they’re everywhere once you learn to spot them: names in heart-shaped designs, sharp comebacks against the mirror’s self-loathing, and nowadays, large-scale walls and civic murals too. Look into history, and you’ll find them: writers and artists who transformed the street into an open studio without asking for permission. Not to “prove” that girls can, but because the world was too confined without their voices. They carved their presence into a culture that often documented men’s achievements, while women’s work remained a whisper, a smudge, a trace. It's time to recognise and celebrate these contributions, to bring them out of the shadows and into the light.

From that perspective, the ladies’ room door isn’t “an easy way in,” but a stage that happens to be accessible. A different kind of public passes through here—circles of friends, the night’s allies, those who can read between the lines. On that door, the point isn’t primarily the signature, but the meaning: a number, a warning, a prayer, a cheeky line, a tiny poem that keeps someone afloat. It’s the city’s Shakespeare in miniature: ten words, one life.

The angel wings on our girl are, therefore, a perfect satire. She is both the one who breaks the rules and the one who reveals that the rules are a lie. “Girls don’t scribble” is as accurate as claiming that the city is neutral—which is to say, not at all. The town wrote first; she adds the underlining. Underlining because home isn’t enough, because the mirror lies, because the world must be answered somewhere. The marker is a tool; the wings are a counterline. This is not just about scribbling, it's about challenging the norms and making a statement.

When the municipality covers Banksy with plexiglass, it’s a disguised form of protection. When the cleaner reaches the ladies’ room before anyone can photograph the text, that too is a disguised form of acknowledgement—disguised as cleanliness. One thing is preserved to be sold; the other is scrubbed to be forgotten. Whose traces are allowed to remain? Whose writing becomes history?

“The scribbler’s scribbler” thrives on that friction. He exposes the hypocrisy of million-pound valuations and tarps. She—our angel with the marker—exposes another level of hypocrisy: the idea that girls are too proper to write on the world. In truth, they write because the world is theirs too. It isn’t innocence she wears, but a claim of ownership.

So, the answer is simple: Yes, girls scribble. Sometimes with lacquer and lipstick, sometimes with stickers, sometimes with two metres of latex across a wall. Sometimes in a place that someone will soon clean, but until then, the line can hit someone, who in turn underlines further. And that’s all it takes. For if the city wrote first and he sets his frame, then she sets her reply: a small line in the margin that makes the text legible.

So, does the emperor have a female claimant to the throne? Well, not at Banksy's level. A few women in street art sell for serious money, but the record prices (so far) are clearly below Banksy’s million-pound mark.

Bambi (“the female Banksy”)—often called that in the British press; works have sold for tens of thousands (USD/GBP). A documented auction record is approximately $30,000 for "Make Tea Not War, Miami" (2013).

Lady Pink—a graffiti pioneer; auction record around $163,800 at Sotheby’s (2020).

Swoon (Caledonia Curry)—internationally recognised; auction prices generally in the low to mid thousands of dollars (higher on the primary market depending on the work).

Miss.Tic—a French legend; regularly at auction, often a few thousand euros per work.

In other words, there are female artists with strong markets, but none that match Banksy’s record-breaking millions. Even mainstream outlets note that Bambi’s prices are nowhere near his top tiers. Get scribbling, girls! Keep a marker in your handbag—lipstick is better on the lips.

And let's not overlook the enigma of the oldest graffiti in history, discovered in the depths of caves in southern France and northern Spain. Surprisingly, the artists behind these ancient masterpieces were women, and the technique they employed 60,000 years ago mirrors that of Banksy today. Could it be that graffiti is a female innovation?

Significant portions of the oldest European cave art are nestled in the landscapes of northern Spain (including Maltravieso and El Castillo) and southern France (e.g., Chauvet). A hand stencil in Maltravieso, dated to around 64,000 years ago, is a subject of intense debate. Some argue Neanderthals crafted it, while others contest this interpretation. The ongoing discourse is published in reputable sources, keeping the research alive and engaging.

The technique of creating hand stencils involved blowing pigment (by mouth or through a tube) over a hand pressed against the wall. This method bears a striking resemblance to the stencil/spray method used in modern graffiti, despite the difference in tools. The continuity of this technique across millennia is a testament to the enduring nature of human creativity.

Several studies, including those by Dean Snow, have suggested that women likely played a significant role in the creation of the hand stencils. This finding, although subject to debate in subsequent research, challenges the traditional narrative that prehistoric art was predominantly male-centric. The conclusion, while not universally accepted, offers a compelling new perspective on the origins of ancient art.

Could it be that the oldest “graffiti” in history adorns the cave walls of northern Spain and southern France? In Maltravieso, a red hand, at least 64,000 years old, stands as a testament to the artistic prowess of our ancient predecessors. The possibility that Neanderthals, or perhaps even Homo sapiens, created these markings before the dawn of modern civilisation is a remarkable discovery.

The technique? Placing a hand on the wall and blowing pigment over it—the same stencil method used today, though without a spray can. Much evidence suggests that many of these handprints were made by women (although scholars still debate how many). So, if Banksy “asks questions on the wall” with stencils, his method predates the city plan—and may have been initiated by women’s hands in its early days.