Summer Wyman spent years teaching art out of her Carmel Valley backyard, and now her students have a new address: the Surf and Turf Tennis Center in Del Mar, where she opened the first brick-and-mortar location of her Surf and Turf Art Club yesterday. The skills-based fine art school sits on the tennis club campus at 15555 Jimmy Durante Drive, offering classes in drawing, painting and sculpting to students as young as 3 all the way up to adults.
The move caps a long path for Wyman, who, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune, had her contract as an art specialist not renewed when Del Mar Union School District schools shut down during the 2020 pandemic. She had worked as a STEAM+ art specialist across Torrey Hills, Del Mar Hills, and Del Mar Heights. She had been teaching fine art to upwards of 1,200 elementary students per week before that contract ended. Rather than step away from teaching, she posted an ad and started outdoor art classes, eventually opening her own school in a Carmel Valley garden studio that same year.
From a Backyard Garden to a Community Hub
The backyard operation grew steadily, eventually serving about 100 people every week, per the Union-Tribune's reporting. Wyman, a mother of three who is mostly a painter and specializes in figure drawing along with large-scale oil landscapes and portraits, holds a Master of Education and a California teaching credential from UC San Diego, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from CSU Channel Islands, and additional artistic training from the Art Center College of Design, according to the Surf & Turf Art Club's own materials. She has continued teaching art part-time at Elevate, a public charter school in Serra Mesa.
The Union-Tribune reports that some of her original art-school students have followed her to Saturday sessions, and her classes reportedly built community connections during a period of isolation. Her co-founder and business partner, Jason Wyman, is a credentialed elementary school teacher who has taught second and third grade, physical education and yoga, and previously served as a K-5 art teacher in the Oceanside Unified School District, according to The Coast News Group. He now assists with studio instruction and community events at the new location.
A Permanent Home at the Tennis Center
The Coast News Group reports that the partnership with Surf and Turf Tennis actually began during the tennis center's summer 2026 camp programs, when the club sought an art vendor to pair with its youth tennis offerings. That summer collaboration, which included nine weeks of packed summer camp sessions, led to a permanent weekday afternoon studio arrangement, and Wyman moved into the Surf and Turf studio in June. Tennis center manager J.Z. Keegan told the outlet the arrangement creates a one-stop drop-off for sports and arts for local families.
The studio itself can host up to 16 kids or adults at a time and includes doors that open to the ocean breeze, giving it a distinct feel from a typical after-school art room. Classes run Monday through Saturday and include classical art history instruction alongside foundational techniques in drawing, painting and sculpting, with students learning what the Union-Tribune describes as flexibility, depth, insight, character and artistic patience through the techniques of the great masters. The tennis complex, which the Union-Tribune places near Wave Volleyball and Noonan Swim, sits across from the Del Mar Fairgrounds and features eight lighted outdoor hard courts, according to PlayYourCourt.
Part of a Growing Youth Enrichment Campus
The Surf and Turf campus has become something of a consolidated youth hub. Alongside Wyman's art club, the property also houses Ember Coding Lab, which teaches Roblox game design and artificial intelligence to children ages 6 to 12 and has co-hosted family open house events with the art club, according to Visit Del Mar Village. Some students who attend Surf and Turf's tennis programs also attend the art school, giving parents a single location to drop children off for multiple activities.
The art club caps its class sizes to maintain small instructor-to-student ratios, requiring a minimum of four students per class, and also hosts community Wine & Paint evenings for adults led by instructors Summer, Jason and Quentin. The studio asks for 24 hours' notice for cancellations to manage its stool reservations. Wyman has also extended her teaching beyond children's programming, leading an Art for Everyone presentation for the Solana Beach Senior Center in May 2025, according to the City of Solana Beach.
An Escape From Screens, and a Funding Gap Behind It
Wyman told the Union-Tribune that opening the new Del Mar location feels like a dream realized, and that the ability to have a safe place to create is what it's all about in the end. She has said creative spaces can be calming and soothing, and the art club's aim, per the same account, is to provide an opportunity for students to step away from screens and technology while receiving high-caliber fine art instruction that goes beyond a typical after-school activity.
The private studio's growth also reflects broader funding pressures on art education in local public schools. The Del Mar Schools Education Foundation raises private community funding, requesting a suggested $800 per student, to help cover a 30% to 40% state funding gap for credentialed STEAM+ specialists, and presented $1.02 million to the district in May, according to the Del Mar Schools Education Foundation. That need persists even though California voters passed Proposition 28 in November 2022, which guarantees roughly $800 million to $1 billion annually in state funding for K-12 arts and music education statewide, according to the California Department of Education. Community members, parents and prospective artists are invited to tour the new Del Mar space, book a trial class or learn about upcoming schedules, with information available at socalartclasses.com.
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