Artists Find Haven Amid Sleaze, Blight : Redevelopment: Painters and sculptors, attracted by low rent, large spaces and the light, are establishing a colony in downtown Oceanside.

An old man was knifed to death inside a shabby brick hotel by the railroad tracks back when it was a place where the raggedy people came to flop with a cheap bottle of booze and their broken dreams.

Today, artist Helene Turgeon energetically flounces around, rejoicing in the crisp white light that bathes the now renovated Travelers’ Hotel and gives her inspiration to splash color and life on canvas.

Sitting on the floor, Turgeon said the aged brick walls of the one-time hotel and cathouse are like a warm cocoon that “takes the edge off of things. It’s like the womb. I can really create here.”

With its raunchy reputation, downtown Oceanside would seem among the last places where Turgeon and other artists would settle.

After all, despite steady progress in recent years, there are still hookers, bums, assorted creeps, forlorn homeless people, not to forget barred windows, shattered glass and gravely vacant lots.

But suddenly, the city’s redevelopment area is drawing artists who are finding something rare and desirable amid the blight--low rents and large spaces for studios only blocks from the sea.

A budding colony of painters, sculptors and others feel they’ve discovered a last refuge in Southern California.

Turgeon and her best friend, artist Jo Toomey, have made the century-old hotel on North Cleveland Street, where the 66-year-old owner was murdered in 1976, into the seeming spiritual center of this tiny but growing downtown artist community.

Six blocks away, inside a former ironworks, glass artist Don Pettey and his three partners are setting up equipment to design and produce fine pressed and cast glass tiles for decoration.

Outside, brown weeds line the sidewalk, and the neighborhood, an unromantic mix of houses, businesses and warehouses, is worn down like an old coin from grandpa. But Pettey, who paid four times higher rent in Laguna Beach, likes it this way.

“Blight is typically what artists have been attracted to,” he said. “To me, this is about the last stretch of undeveloped coastline. You don’t see anything over two stories here--yet.”

He respects the honesty of this place and knows that, if it were any different, he couldn’t afford to be here.

“There are some rough characters,” he said, “but, if they were gone, this wouldn’t be what it is. It would all be two-income WASPs.”

Oceanside redevelopment officials, knowing good fortune when they see it, are encouraging these emigre artists, knowing they will boost the downtown’s slow but unmistakable transition into a lively enclave of coastal condos, shops and restaurants.

The city doesn’t have the sophisticated image of La Jolla, Del Mar or Laguna Beach, but neither has Oceanside become so trendy that artists can’t survive the steep rents or afford to buy a studio.

“We’re welcoming artists, we’ve got our arms open,” said Oceanside Redevelopment Director Patricia Hightman.

Last spring, the city changed an ordinance and began allowing artists to live in their studios. Soon, the city will begin advertising itself in trade publications as the new budget paradise for artists.

“What artists do is draw people into the area,” Hightman said. “Then we can start getting boutiques and retail space.”

It will be a long time before downtown Oceanside completely sheds its somewhat dated persona as the playpen for thousands of callow Marine privates and lance corporals from nearby Camp Pendleton. But word is spreading that the core is a sanctuary for artists who can no longer pay the high price elsewhere.

Although Pettey is a refugee from Laguna Beach, sculptor T. J. Dixon is ready to leave upscale Del Mar after seven years there.

Dixon has scouted for a spacious studio in downtown San Diego, but she has found the costs “nuts, crazy. Even if you can get some good space, it’s in a really bad place in town.”

She “stumbled” onto Oceanside and, despite some worries, is negotiating for the purchase of a vintage yellow warehouse with an eye-bugging 4,800-square feet and 18-foot-high ceilings for her large sculptures.

“It’s one of the last places along the beach where it’s even possible because Oceanside has a terrible name,” she said. “I never considered going to Oceanside.”

She heard the city is “supposedly rough,” just the rap that local officials and merchants have aspired to shed in recent years.

True, the downtown has its vagrants and criminals, but Hightman said the victims usually aren’t residents but young Marines from base.

Still, Dixon, emboldened by the company of her German shepherd, is cautiously venturing ahead with talks to purchase the warehouse, won over by the cheaper space and a studio where she can live near the ocean.

Back at the Travelers’ Hotel, the place where vice cops once tried to rid the community of crime, five artists occupy its two stories, including Turgeon and Toomey. And the building has a new name: Studio 100.

Much of the spark behind the emerging art scene comes from the synergy of Turgeon and Toomey’s 22-year friendship, which began back in Chicago and endured long separations until last year.

Toomey was a fashion illustrator and Turgeon worked for an ad agency, but both hungered to become artists and recognized each other’s talent.

After time in New York, Toomey moved to Los Angeles, while Turgeon drearily remained behind to pursue a non-painting career in New York. Eventually, Toomey and her husband, Don, spurned the big city for a coastal condo in Oceanside not far from the old hotel.

Toomey wanted to set up a studio, and then Don happened upon the old hotel. It seemed perfect. Last October, Toomey leased the hotel for a studio. She had already successfully lobbied Turgeon to dump New York and come join her in Oceanside.

“We just wanted a place to work,” recalled Toomey, who quickly gained faith that Oceanside would grow out of its problems and become an attractive community.

“Artists traditionally need space and light,” Toomey said. “Oceanside is just seconds away from really becoming a showcase. This is a perfect time for artists to come in.”

As the tiny beehive of artists got busy inside the hotel, passers-by became curious, popping in to look around. One such visit by some local kids gave Turgeon, whose blunt-object New York accent shows little sign of remission, a lesson in California-speak.

The kids were staring at the paintings, Turgeon said. “They go, ‘Wow, this is BAD , this is RADICAL .’ I said to Jo, ‘Is this good?’ ”

To her delight, not only passersby, but other artists began coming around to check out the new embryonic art scene. Since talking with Toomey, some have been contacting property owners and redevelopment officials about setting up shop.

Personal enrichment from the coastal environment is changing Turgeon’s work, which is mainly highly stylized thoroughbred horses and scenic paintings. The light in California is different, she said, and suddenly her forms are more dynamic and with bolder colors.

“I’ve been released,” Turgeon said.

Toomey works at her own easel, and she contemplates the meaning of what’s started in downtown Oceanside.

“Art is a civilizing factor,” she said. “There’s something about living with real art that makes things whole. It’s like having friends around.”