6A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL FEBRUARY 8, 2017
Resident spins magic for local theatres' costume departments
BY CAITLYN MAY
cmay@cgsentinel.com
know she’s your costume person but where did you get them?’”
Turnquist's costumes are often the talk of the productions but behind-the-
scenes garners an interesting look into their construction.
A pair of boots used during the production of “Hamlet,” passed for the
real thing. However, Turnquist said the shoes were made of felt booties,
strips of fabric and spray-painted googly eyes stood in for the rivets.
All of Turnquist's costumes have the same “make it work” component
stitched in. The majority of the elaborate ball gowns wowing crowds at
the Cottage Grove Theatre are made out of curtains and lined with old
bed sheets. She has used place mats to embellish some pieces and shower
curtains to add character to others.
“The average cost of a full gown, I would say, could be $30 or $40 dol-
lars. But that’s all of the material,” Turnquist said.
When she's not at the theatre, Turnquist oftentimes brings her work home.
The theatre has a washing machine and dryer but Turnquist says there are
some days her husband ends up doing a pile of costume laundry. While
most people would dread the ironing and folding to come after, Turnquist
says there is no "least favorite" part of sewing and creating costumes.
And while she does not sew for private individuals, her grown daughters
often end up with Halloween costumes more fi t for a production than a
stroll down the block to collect candy.
"I'll give my daughter IOU gifts and she'll turn them in for a costume,"
she said. "One year, she and her husband were the leads from 'Mary
Poppins.'"
She is currently scheduled to work on four of the six shows premiering
at the theatre this season and looks forward to the packed schedule. It’s a
shift from her decades of teaching but she says volunteering at the theatre
eased her transition into retirement.
“I used to cry because I didn’t know what I would do,” she said. “I was
helping on ‘Beauty and the Beast’ one summer and the start of school
came and went and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t miss it.’ So, I’ve been doing this
ever since.”
As a child, Rhonda Turnquist
was in one of two places; her
father’s wood shop or her moth-
er’s sewing space. Decades later,
she’s used the skills she learned in the wood shop to build her
own sewing room and she’s lending her talents to the Cottage
Grove Theatre to spin costumes fi t for Broadway.
“I’ve sewed for as long as I can remember,”Turnquist said.
“If I wasn’t sewing costumes, I would be sewing for myself.
When I don’t have anything to sew for the theatre I come in
here and make something else.”
“Here” is a small cottage on her property, currently under
construction by Turnquist herself. The newest room will
house fabrics and sit just outside the main sewing room,
which Turnquist also built. Fabrics sit folded in piles as high
as the shelf they’re housed on while thread and bobbins
and sewing notions line the walls, all guarded by Muffi n; a
15-year-old cat who spends her days lounging in the sewing
house.
“She’s a little old lady like me, and we get along fi ne,” Turn-
quist said.
The friendly relationship may be in part to the time the two
spend together. During particularly involved shows, Turnquist
says she can 10 to 12 hours a day sewing, six days a week for
up to fi ve weeks at a time.
“I take one day off. And that’s to go shopping,” Turnquist
said.
She has her favorite haunts that consist strictly of sec-
ond-hand stores though she does “cheat” occasionally and
order bulk fabric from Amazon.
The result of her shopping excursions and 12 hour days is
nothing short of miraculous.
“I had a woman ask, ‘Where did you get the costumes?’ and
they told her I made them,” Turnquist said. “She said, ‘No, I
Town clears out homeless camp
A homeless camp established under the Main
St. Bridge has been cleared, according to Cot-
tage Grove City Manager Richard Meyers.
According to the city, the camp had been in place for “sometime” as
it was not readily visible from the street. Cottage Grove Police Chief
Scott Shepherd said the department responds to notifi cations of tran-
sient camps immediately when they are brought to the department’s
attention.
“When there are transient camps that are on public property we try
to make contact with whoever might be using the area and advise them
of trespass and give them 24 hours,” Shepherd said.
Once individuals using the camp are notifi ed, they have 24 hours
to vacate the area. Any valuable items left behind are collected by the
CGPD and held for 30 days. If no one claims the items after a month,
they are disposed of.
The camp under Main St. Bridge was reportedly full of typical camp
items according to the city. A statement on the camp noted, “There
was the usual trash, blankets, garbage, food waste, metals, and human
waste.”
The area was not accessible to equipment, forcing Northwest Hazmat
to perform the clean-up by hand at a cost to the city of Cottage Grove.
Shepherd said the department tries to patrol areas it knows are used
for shelter by homeless individuals including the underside of bridg-
es and empty fi elds. Once a camp is cleared out, the department will
make regular patrols of the area to prevent the camp from being re-es-
tablished.
“If there is someone who’s been advised before (of trespassing) they
might receive a citation for trespass,” Shepherd said. “If we tell them
BY CAITLYN MAY
cmay@cgsentinel.com
multiple times and they’re not
doing anything to change their
situation we can even take them
into physical custody and charge
them.”
Affordable housing in the state
of Oregon continues to be an is-
sue with several cities around the
state citing a lack of inventory,
stagnant wages and slow turn-
over as key issues in the growing
problem.
2016 data from the Annual
Homeless Assessment Report
noted that Oregon's homeless
population faces particular cir-
cumstances when it comes to
housing. 59.1 percent of the
state's homeless reported sleep-
ing in cars or on the street, unable
to fi nd shelter.
It's a problem that has plagued
Cottage Grove. Recent efforts to
construct a "tiny house village"
were met with hesitation from the immediate community but support-
ed by multiple community organizations dedicated to answer the ques-
tion of affordable housing in the area.
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