The story of a rejected artist finally making it big time is as familiar as the tales our grandparents like to tell us: “I walked 17 miles, barefoot, through three feet of snow; I dog-walked in New York through rejection letter after rejection letter …” The similarities are noticeable, and the struggles equally ruthless. And while there's a good chance that your aging grandpa has taken to spicing up his retirement with total B.S., the stories of struggling artists are mostly true, and there are only a few that come out of the fight still holding a paintbrush.

Casey O'Connell is one artist who has prospered, and even though she is finally content in her position as one of the West Coast's most fawned over new artists, she's too fresh off the track to have forgotten how she got there. Several cities, plenty of dog walks, and even more broken hearts paved the way for this young painter. But, we couldn't be happier that she's arrived.

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Thirty years ago, when graffiti was withheld the respect of the subtitle “Art Form,” a twelve year-old Vulcan hit the subway cars of New York with his collection of wildly colored paintcans. Over thirty years — and countless walls, trains, and buses — later, the now San Francisco-based graffiti legend has made a smooth transition from street to START SOMA, where the artist-in-residence uses his decades of experience to continue doing what he's done all along — create some of the most significant works of art, both street and otherwise, this side of 1973.

We chatted with Vulcan about his graffiti past and his gallery present, and came out the other side in agreement with the artist: Corporate or communal, gallery or ‘getting up'; art is art, and making it is what truly matters.

Joshspear.com: As one of the earlier writers, what graffiti represents to you is probably somewhat different than what it represents to today’s newest artists. Has any important meaning been lost over the years?

Vulcan: When I was 12 years old in Harlem, I wanted to CREATE. But options were pretty limited – scavenged paint cans and public surfaces were pretty much my only options. Throughout my teens, I painted wherever and whatever I could – buses, subway trains, city walls. I painted my name. I painted giant robots. I planned ‘masterpieces’ in my notebooks at school, and horded paint cans until I had literally hundreds of colors. But I didn’t call what I was doing ‘graffiti’. I was just painting. As I honed my technical skills and found my voice, at some point I was making ART – but it was never a conscious progression. READ MORE…

Hear Ye, Hear Ye. The time has come for gamers to gather around. Mavens of Metroid, Guitar Heroes, and Big Game Buck Hunters, we are talking to you. You are charged with making a pilgrimage to San Francisco for the 4th Annual Into The Pixel Exhibition at the Art Hotel on February 20th. It's time you finally showed your appreciation for the creators of the characters who keep you glued to your game console for hours on end so that you may once in your life taste the thrill of victory and not the agony of defeat associated with the outside world.

Alas, this exhibition is not only for the dedicated gamers. We'd be remiss to not mention that this is the only juried event that invites enthusiasts from both the “fine art world and interactive entertainment industry to show their appreciation for the art of the video game”; the upcoming exhibition will also feature collection from the previous two years. If you haven't booked your flights to San Francisco while reading this post…we don't know what you're waiting for. However, if you must wait to ask your mom in you can go, the exhibition is displayed through March.

As you may recall, back in March we told you that Vulcan bombed some servers at Google. This wasn’t an act of tech-terrorism, but an act of art. The Vulcan in question wasn’t played by Leonard Nimoy and nothing actually got blown up. Those in the know, know that bombing is slang for painting graffiti on something (or at least it was when I saw the movie Beat Street way back in the 1980’s). Graffiti artist Vulcan, had been commissioned to paint a line of servers for Google in conjunction with his solo show.

He recently returned to Silicon Valley to dole out some more street cred, this time the target was the office of online t-shirt and apparel merchants at Zazzle. This time Vulcan wasn’t alone. He was joined by fellow Graffiti gods and START SOMA artists in residence Chor Boogie and Apex to create the Trifecta Mural, an absolutely wondrous creation of urban artistry that will no doubt make the Zazzle offices the envy of many a gallery owner. If you’re not in awe enough after looking at this incredibly complex mural, just take a gander at the making of video making of video. Who knows, with Silicon Valley so enamored with their work Steve Jobs just might have to commission these guys to make the GraffitiPod.

Tomorrow evening in San Francisco will be the opening of the Last Painted Rooms Art Show at the Hotel Des Arts. Artists have been painting up those rooms for about two years now, and this show will mark the end of that process. If you’re in the Bay Area, head over tomorrow evening from 7-11pm to see people like Shepard Fairey, Sugarluxe, and Jeremyville’s contributions to this incredible hotel customization. In addition to the ten new painted rooms being unveiled tomorrow night, the halls of the hotel will be filled with hundreds of affordable pieces of art available for purchase.

In January, when it was announced, I let you know about Start Soma’s Propaganda III World Tour. If you remember, the focus of the tour is not to sell art, but rather to celebrate free speech and freedom of expression. The format of this tour makes it a true exercise in global, peer-to-peer, open source political art showcasing. The San Francisco Gallery will be opening on (fittingly) July 4th, and will be touring the world thereafter. For those interested, you can find poster submission guidelines here. As they receive submissions, they’re putting them into a Flikr gallery and making them available for download onto your mo-bile– there are already some great political designs and messages. And for you galleries and venues out there that might be interested in hosting an opening, email John Doffing (john@startsoma.com)– the only requirement is that you host a one day opening, and that you pay to have the posters shipped to the next venue. Small price to pay to be part of the world’s first truly global, peer-to-peer, open source art show!

Start Soma, the fine upstart art gallery in San Francisco that’s focused on three simple ideals — emerging artists, original art, and affordable art — is going to be hitting the road this April through 2008 with its Propaganda III Tour. The tour has stops all over the place– North America, South America, Australia, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The focus of the tour is not to sell art, but rather to celebrate free speech and freedom of expression. The format of this tour makes it a true exercise in global, peer-to-peer, open source political art showcasing. As an added bonus, all of the final collection of posters will be donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in L.A. where they will join the other 50,000 posters in the CSPG archives. Get your overtly political designs going– the deadline for poster submission is March 15th.

Is it an art gallery or a store that sells Helio handsets? The answer: both. At Helio’s newly opened (today) flagship store in Santa Monica, CA, you can of course buy the touted Helio devices that will change the way you communicate with your friends by putting you and your GPS-based device smack-dab in the middle of a friend-centric network (MySpace and Facebook included). But what’s more impressive is the way Helio has found a way to integrate real art with the Helio brand. The flagship store, along with another 5 soon-to-launch stores, feature artwork curated by John Doffing, founder of Start Soma + Start Mobile galleries and curator of the Hotel des Arts in San Francisco. The art-rich stores offer more than just a gallery setting though– customers can actually download digital versions of the art as wallpaper for their Helio device or purchase the originals directly from the stores. Ingenious.

The custom boutique hotels around the world all took notice to the Hotel des Arts in the heart of San Francisco’s downtown Union Square when it launched last year. Last year they showed their project called “Painted Rooms” at the “art hotel” with 16 custom painted rooms from people like David Choe and David DeRosa, among others. This year they’ve come back adding an additional dozen more rooms including painted rooms by Josh Feldman, The Vinyl Killers, Bryan Dawson and Maya Hayuk. Their roster of top notch underground and emerging artist created rooms is totally impressive–and the sky is the limit here–they say watch out for future painted rooms from folks like Shepard Fairey (Obey), and Dalek.