Katie’s recent loquat jamming party and subsequent Instagramming of resulting preserves (seen to the right there) has prompted me to write up the new favorite design product in our home—this handmade stained glass trivet, a one-of-a-kind piece created by Los Angeles-based artist, Debbie Bean.

Originally a photographer by trade, Bean seems to have led quite an interesting life, documenting the burgeoning Brooklyn indie music scene, then moving back to Los Angeles and broadening her visual arts training, “apprenticing under a master Tibetan monk, studying the ancient tradition of Tibetan Painting”. She then hit the road with the band Stone Temple Pilots before, most recently, returning to a childhood love of stained glass artwork.

Bean now enjoys a living making beautiful, unique stained glass pieces ranging from decorative hangings to jewelry to home goods, like this trivet, a thing we never knew we needed until we saw it and needed it terribly.

You can see more of Debbie’s work and purchase it directly from her on her Web site; check her stockists page for stores in Southern California + San Francisco that carry her work (we got this at Individual Medley in Atwater).

June is upon us, which is crazy, because I seem to remember counting down the new year, like, a few days ago, right?

Regardless of our lost time and the potential cause being alien abduction and/or just getting really, really old, new month means new mixtape, people. That’s how we do it these days.

This month—as always—we’re giving you the best one yet. That’s right—just like Lionel Messi, we just keep getting better and better.

June’s mix starts off with a brand new single from longtime favorites, Mates of State (who also just keep getting fucking better and who have a new EP out later this month); gives an inordinately strong showing for the Swedes in Little Children, Noonie Bao, and Westkust; provides another strong showing for Pacific Northwest bands with ‘pony’ in their name, with a new tracks from Motopony + Seapony; and a lovely new track from the excellent Salt Lake City/Chapel Hill duo, Mideau, who we interviewed last summer. And we finally give in to the alluring pop hooks of Nashville’s Kopecky. It was only a matter of time.

Give it all a listen below and visit our SoundCloud stream or scroll back through posts to hear past mix tapes.

The fine people at CityLab yesterday announced built: LA, an interactive mapping project that plots the age of nearly every building in Los Angeles.

From CityLab:

“Using open data from local governments, built: LA visualizes the age of roughly 3 million buildings across L.A. County constructed between 1890 and 2008.”

The result is a zoomable map that displays the year of construction for all structures in the massive database as you roll over them in your browser. While fascinating in a functional, informative sense, it also strikes us as a beautiful marriage of data + design, reminiscent of the seen from overheard at night.

Our place, sadly, does not seem to be included in the data, but most of neighbors’ are. And we just love how Beachwood canyon is this glowing hand of development reaching up into the undeveloped wilds of Griffith Park.

Give it a go yourself. And be sure to click on the interactive timeline and stopwatch to see the development span through the years. Just make sure your browser’s up-to-date…or you likely won’t see anything at all.

built: LA was developed by Omar Ureta of the Urban Policy Collective at Roschen Van Cleve Architects and made with Mapbox Studio and Mapbox-GL, inspired by Portland, Oregon: The Age of a City; terrain + label data by Mapbox. OpenStreetMap, under ODbL.

Our requisite shot of French artist Vincent Lamouroux’s Projection, the recent art installation along Sunset in Silver Lake that transformed the Sunset Pacific Motel (AKA the “Bates Motel”) into a shockingly white-washed monument to creativity.

As the artist and the France Los Angeles Exchange put it:

“Just as the Silver Lake neighborhood itself has transformed radically in recent years, and continues to evolve, so too will the artist’s iteration of the motel embody a transformation, surrendering and passage; the white surface of its facade will be a symbolic invitation to project our ideas about both its mythic past and its indeterminate future.”

You can see a ton more images on the (very cool) Projection LA site and read the artist’s full statement…if you’re quick about it.

If you’re in LA, stop by the site before the entire thing’s demolished in the coming weeks.

We just updated our portfolio with new print work for Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens‘ quarterly newsletters + most recent program catalogs.

Phipps is a non-profit we’ve proudly worked with since early 2013. They focus on promoting environmental sustainability and working to “inspire and educate all with the beauty and importance of plants”, an inarguably worthy goal we’re happy to help them work towards.

You can see both Grow + Thrive—their catalog + newsletter, respectively—in our work portfolio, and expect more new work from Phipps soon.

Another gem from Mister Uncertain—the Los Angeles-based, vegan-hyping street artist we mentioned briefly in April—this one right in front of MooShoes in Silver Lake.

Pictured again here, Katie’s sandals from house brand, Novacas.

If you’re looking for a last-minute idea for your Memorial Day picnicking, pot-lucking, and/or general foodie merriment,we politely put forth one of our favorite recipes from Mangoes and Curry Leaves, Beets with Tropical Flavors, which Katie made up for our neighbor’s annual pre-Memorial Day party.

We’ve written up a veganization of a fish stew from that same cookbook in the past, but this one’s already animal-/vegan-friendly as is, showcasing the naturally sweet, earthy flavor of cooked, fresh beets and the complimentary richness of coconut milk.

This go ’round, we subbed kaffir lime leaves for the called-for curry leaves simply because those are what we had on-hand, but, in general, the recipe’s relatively simple with a pretty high payoff-to-work ratio.

You can see the fully transcribed recipe over at food.com.

Enjoy! And—we’ll warn you now—wearers of summer white, eat carefully.

Caught a rainbow under the table in our outdoor office the other day.

Enjoy the long holiday weekend, everybody.

A brief visual study of light seen through wild fennel growing in the mountains near the Hollywood sign.

Last night, we attended Planned Parenthood Los Angeles‘ 12th Annual Bingo for Choice fundraiser, an event thrown by Planned Parenthood Young Professionals to raise funds for the good work of the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

PPYP asked our studio to design these invites and guide the event branding and, being longtime fans of the organization, we happily obliged, taking design cues from the venue, the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s Centennial Ballroom, in historic downtown Los Angeles.

You can read a little more about the design process and see a few more images of the piece in our portfolio.

The event itself—a night of drinks, snacks, prizes, and drag queen bingo—was a ton of fun. Run by LA’s longtime entertainer + event fundraiser Bingo Boy and emceed by the boisterously charismatic Roxy Wood, the event was full of bingo-infused sex jokes, chanting, and, yes, bingo. Bingo Boy + co. have been doing similar charity events since ’98 and similar, even more roof-raising events are held at West Hollywood’s Hamburger Mary’s Wednesdays + Saturdays (and yes, that site is awesome). We’d highly recommend attending any and all for an excellent night.

Below, our friend + PPYP volunteer, Ella, posing with Ms. Wood.

You can find out more about Planned Parenthood and how to get involved in your area via the organization’s Web site and join Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Young Professionals via their Web portal.