Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Thompson
Hi Jessica, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Jessica Thompson-Castillo, an artist, educator, and lifelong Dallasite dedicated to empowering young creatives. I’ve worked in youth development for over ten years designing programs that help young people build confidence, leadership skills, and pathways into creative careers.
My journey started with a college internship at the Thinkery in Austin, where I worked with the Volunteen program, a workforce development initiative where teens took on leadership roles facilitating museum experiences. Seeing young people step up as leaders and take ownership of their work was transformative for me. It sparked my passion for creating spaces where youth are empowered, valued, and given real world opportunities to grow.
After graduating college, I was hired at the Dallas Museum of Art, where I became the museum’s first Manager of Teen Programs. With the help of the museum’s Teen Advisory Council, we collaboratively designed programs that connected thousands of students across DFW to leadership opportunities, mentorship, and creative exploration.
With young people as my best and closest partners, I wanted to create more opportunities for them to develop their identities as artists and be recognized as leaders in their own right. I founded work/shop in 2022 as a space where youth are centered and celebrated as artists, entrepreneurs, and culture-makers.
What started as a mobile art studio quickly grew into a thriving creative community. In just two years, work/shop has served over 11,885 youth and families, hosted four Teen Artist Markets featuring 76 young artists, and collaborated with libraries, community centers, and major public spaces like Klyde Warren Park. In 2025, we moved into our first permanent classroom space at Tyler Station in Oak Cliff, where we now host free Open Studios, low-cost classes, and workshops that equip youth with both creative and entrepreneurial skills.
At its core, work/shop is a place where young people can build their artistic identity, connect with their peers, and turn their passion into a future. Dallas is home to a vibrant and growing creative economy, and youth deserve a seat at the table. Everything we do is about making sure they have the space, support, and opportunities to thrive.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Getting work/shop off the ground has been exciting but hard work—lots of cold emails to potential partners, late nights prepping art materials, and creative problem-solving on the fly. As a small, grassroots organization, we’ve relied on the generosity and belief of our community to help us grow. So much of our early success came from partnerships with organizations that saw the value in what we were building and invited our small pop-up to be part of something bigger.
Dallas Teen Pride in June of 2022 was our first major public event, giving us the platform to connect with young artists and show the community what we could do. Dallas City of Learning and Big Thought helped us develop engaging, mobile art-making experiences, allowing us to bring creativity directly to youth in neighborhoods across the city. Klyde Warren Park played a pivotal role in our journey, offering us the space and visibility to launch our first Teen Artist Market—a milestone that proved how much demand there was for a platform dedicated to young creatives. Even now, we’ve been able to keep our expenses low and maximize our resources thanks to the generosity of our neighbors at Pegasus Creative Reuse, who share our belief in making art more accessible. It’s deeply meaningful to have the trust and confidence of so many community partners who understand the importance of investing in young artists.
Right now, we’re facing an exciting but challenging transition: setting down roots with our first dedicated classroom space. After operating as a mobile studio for so long, we’re eager to create a home base where young people can gather, create, and grow. We’re looking forward to getting to know our neighbors at Tyler Station and the Elmwood neighborhood, building new relationships, and finding ways to contribute to the creative community in this new chapter of work/shop.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
work/shop is a nonprofit community art studio dedicated to cultivating a creative community for young people in Dallas through art-making and arts entrepreneurship training. Our mission is to nurture the artistic talents of youth and help them transform their skills into creative careers and paid opportunities. Through our programs, we provide young artists with access to mentorship, professional development, and a supportive network that values their voices and unique artistic visions.
One of our signature programs is the Dallas Teen Artist Market, a local art fair showcasing young artists and creators from across the metroplex. The market features artists ages 14-19 working in various mediums, all selected by work/shop’s Student Planning Committee, a group of teen artists who help shape our programming. This initiative equips young creatives with the tools they need to thrive—offering free entrepreneurship training, product development workshops, and open studio time where they can access supplies and maker tools at no cost. Since our launch in 2022, we’ve hosted four markets featuring 76 local teen artists. The program is expanding to Garland in the summer of 2025, and we’re excited to help start creative businesses in a new area of the metroplex.
After operating as a mobile studio for three years, we opened our first permanent classroom space at Tyler Station in January 2025. Designed as an art-centered makerspace, our studio provides young artists with the freedom to create what they want, how they want. We host free Open Studios twice a month for teens and low-cost classes on a variety of artistic mediums and topics for ages 8-19.
Even with a home base, our roots remain mobile. We continue collaborating with libraries, community centers, and nonprofits to bring art-making opportunities directly to young people across Dallas. You’ll find us at Klyde Warren Park, local community centers, and events like Dallas Pride, as well as at Youth First at the Resource Center, ensuring that creative opportunities are accessible to all. At its core, work/shop is a movement to empower the next generation of artists and creative entrepreneurs by giving them the space, support, and opportunities they need to succeed.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
At the heart of our work is the belief that young people’s creativity deserves to be seen, heard, and supported. Young people are a necessary and needed voice in the development of Dallas’s cultural identity, as they represent the next generation of artistic leaders and culture creators.
What matters most to us at work/shop is ensuring that young artists have the space, support, and opportunities they need to create, grow, and thrive. Art is a powerful form of self-expression, a tool for community-building, and a viable career path. Too often young people struggle to find spaces where their creativity and ideas are valued, where they have access to resources, and where they can connect with a community that encourages them to pursue their passions.
Everything we do, from our free open studios and low-cost classes to our Teen Artist Market is designed to make artistic opportunities more inclusive and empowering. Through our programming, students develop their identities as creative entrepreneurs while forming meaningful connections with peers, local professionals, mentors, post-secondary education, and future employers in their own communities.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://workshopdtx.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workshopdtx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/workshopdtx/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/workshopdtx/
Image Credits
Gregory Castillo
