A stroll through Chico love and ‘bigger things’: My walking tour with muralist Jedrek Speer

A CN&R writer hoofs it around downtown with a Butte County native whose vision is brightening the walls of his hometown

By Helen Harlan

It’s the Friday after the election and I’m in the Catalyst Domestic Violence Center parking lot in Downtown Chico. I approach a cargo van parked near a meter as muralist Jedrek Speer waves, jumps out and shakes my hand. After a few weeks of back and forth, we’ve finally found time to meet and talk – or, in this case, walk and talk – on the record.

“Just so you know,” the 47-year-old Pleasant Valley High alum says cautiously, “I have to pick up my kids in 45 minutes.”

I tell him we can make that work. I call Speer “Jed” because that’s how his brother – my old college buddy from UCLA – introduced us over text. I set the timer on my phone.  The first stop on our impromptu tour is a mural occupying the two-story wall rising above us. It reads “Love, Safety, Support, Respect.”

The journey begins.

Commissioned by the Catalyst center in 2020, this piece was initially “just a blank wall” before Speer started working on it. He remembers the violence prevention group had ideas about color – they wanted blues – but not about specific content.

“I had this kind of, like, side-profile-silhouettes of people sort of screaming, and that felt a little too intense,” Speer recalls. “And this topography, these letters, like if I’m doodling on a sheet of paper, this is what comes out.”

In terms of method, Speer cut the stencil on the wall without a projector and used his preferred spray paint, Montana Cans, an acrylic from Germany. As on previous projects, Speer worked with a couple of apprentices whom he praises: local muralist Christian Garcia and screen printer Kyle Harper. This mural took about five days to complete.

We walk on.

It’s worth mentioning that Speer is an artist and muralist who creates under the moniker @seizer_one. His dozens of works can be seen on walls from Paradise to Bidwell Junior High. He was featured in the 2010 documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. One of my old UCLA buddies, who’s also a Pleasant Valley High grad, calls Speer a “local legend.”

Surprisingly, Speer has no formal painting or studio art training. While attending UC Santa Cruz, he focused on film and digital media. He became interested in street art after moving to Los Angeles in the early 2000s.

“I just fell into it,” Speer remembers. “I moved to L.A. to get a job in the film industry; and I did – and I just hated it. At the time, my girlfriend, now wife, was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ll support us. We have this cheap apartment. Quit your job and do whatever you want to do … And just that week, I met this woman who owned a clothing company. So, I started riding my bike downtown and doing illustrations for her, and the rest is history.”

In 2013, Speer and his family moved back to Chico. His wife Melissa is co-owner of The Pilates Barre Chico. When he’s not a full-time dad to two children and a muralist, Speer works as a graphic designer and freelance creative in apparel, most recently with Neff Headwear.

We come to our second stop on the trek, “The Beautification Project.” It sits on the facade of an abandoned commercial space on Main between 2nd and 3^rd streets across from Bella’s Sports Pub. Speer completed it in 2023. He tells me that it was an abandoned, plain wall that kept getting tagged, so he called the owners and got permission to beautify it. Speer did this on his own dime, which we both agree makes it public art at its most organic. There are no words on this one. It’s a spiral-like design radiating out in full color. It was painted free-hand.

“This one I love the most because this is just completely random,” Speer says. “This is just what came out of my head. It wasn’t a commission. I just came to the wall and was like, ‘I think I’m gonna make the line go like this.'”

We visit two more of Speer’s murals, “Better Together” and “Together.” We discuss a number of topics, including how he prepares his walls, his kids as artists, Los Angeles, backlash and grief.

At one point, I get to the question I’ve had in my back pocket since I was first told about Speer’s work, which is so branded by messages of hope, unity, and love in a time when many might feel those things are in short supply.

“How does it feel to repeat a message that some folks might feel isn’t being practiced?” I ask.

Speers sighs and considers it. “Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent,” he acknowledges, looking down and appearing at a loss for words. There’s silence. I don’t push it. Time is almost up. Speer has got to pick up those kids, so we head back to his van and wrap things up.

“The main thing is, I was born and raised here,” Speer finally reflects. “Living in Paradise and Chico, I think I felt pretty sheltered. I remember when I went to San Francisco when I was a teenager and saw the graffiti; in my mind, it just looked colorful. It was big. So, I think that’s kind of where the spark happened. And then, when I was in LA, I kind of got involved with the whole street art scene, and when I moved back to Chico with my family, I wanted to bring some of that city inspiration, but specifically directed at the youth. I want to inspire the younger kids. Like, ‘Hey, I know I live in a small town, but I can do bigger things.'”