Anastasia Coope - Darning Woman

Darning Woman is an intentional, beautiful,

sometimes confrontational album that shreds

expectations of DIY, bedroom music, and feminine

themes. There's a lushness and maternal instinct at play,

as Coope connects the dots between physicality,

ephemera, and the ultrafeminine.

"I don't really like to deal that much with themes of

personal hardships, or heartache and love," says

Anastasia Coope. "Ultimately, I work most honestly

with the language of what is happening in a moment and

the passage of time around it. That, coupled with my

reaction to entering the artistic landscape, and my

thoughts about what does and doesn't get

representation, comprises most of this album."

Darning Woman explores, among other things, the

meditative aspect of sewing, patching and

embellishment, care and repair, collection not as

modern, craven consumption but as a counterpoint to

materialism. This sort of collection - the good kind, the

gathering of things to make a home - can be, in Coope's

words, "A very baby way to critique capitalism. Birds

make nests, right? It can be a new life for a thing that

was made. What you surround yourself with matters."

To that end, Anastasia Coope is also the founder and

leader of the Bonzo collective and show series, an

exciting new home for the type of expansive,

profoundly creative scene that New York has been

missing for some time. And while Bonzo may well be

the ascent of a new community, Darning Woman is the

story of Anastasia Coope, herself. It is the sound of

Coope entering the world as an artist, acknowledging

the tangle of what changes - the gaze of the world,

Coope's art in reaction and community to art in general

- and what does not: her ideas and her own self.