E.V. Day’s “Hats.” (Courtesy of Hillsman Jackson/ SMU News & Information)

At first glance the sight of Meadows Museum’s newest pieces look as if a traveling Renaissance fair accidently left their costumes out to dry on some sort of intricate clothes line.

However, it Meadows, we must think not as a person but as a patron. And as all good patrons of art know, sometimes one has to smile, nod and  mumble something like “yes, exquisite” as one saunter’s to the next exhibit.

Featured on multiple parts of campus, the  complex sculpture works are credited to New York artist E.V. Day. The pieces come with a greater 14 piece collection titled Divas Ascending.

The three particular pieces that SMU has their hands on include Carmen, Merry Widow and Hats.

“In my art, I use tension to suspend, stretch, and shred garments and to create forms that I liken to futurist abstract paintings in three dimensions. The challenge was to do justice to the retired costumes, which still have a majesty and degree of craftsmanship unlike any I’d ever encountered. I wanted the sculptures to reflect and refract the specific roles the costumes had played. The interplay between the story of the opera from which each costume came, the moment created by the sculpture, and the physicality of the transformed garment – its materials, its shapes, its colors, floating in this celestial space – is the work that I hope viewers of my installation will appreciate,” Day said.

Day draws inspiration from operas and operettes like “Casanova” and “The Magic Flute” to construct his complex sculptures.

“Hats” is the real stand out of the three pieces SMU is showcasing. The sculpture as a whole posesses a sense of whimsy that the other two pieces, Carmen and Merry Widow, lack.

Catch E.V Day’s intriguing sculptures at the Meadows Museum and Bob Hope Lobby until the traveling showcase ends on Sept. 30.