His style of drawing and painting is characterized by ornate, colorful, intimidating figures which he likened to "characters from Dallas".

He was raised by his mother's parents, Ike and Zannie Simpson, in the Panther Burn settlement of Rolling Fork, Mississippi.

He then began full-time farm labor to support his grandmother after his grandfather was forced to flee Panther Burn after an altercation with a white employer, who threatened his life.

In Memphis, he worked a succession of day-labor jobs, and by night played blues at venues on the neighboring, historic Beale Street.

[2] Speller is best known for his drawings of detailed houses, modes of transportation (trains, cars, riverboats, and planes), and adorned figures, particularly women.

Art historians have drawn a connection between Speller's patterns and African American quilt-making traditions, with their improvised rectangular and square grids.

[7] Slipping daily between unending manual labor and the solace of blues nightclubs brought forth the contrasts in Speller's work.

"This theme in turn fits within the realm of the grotesque and the abject, depicting a shifting, wavy body that threatens to exceed containment.