Following the lineage of Taller Alacran, the workshop of Puerto Rican maestro Antonio Martorell, the author explores the studio workshop model as an alternative or a supplement to public school arts education models. Arguing that the production of art is a means of making one's ideas or one's community visible and that the inability, whether through education or funds, to create art can silence a person or a community, she questions whether the government is the most appropriate steward of urban public school students' arts education, given its track record of silencing artists with the reduction and removal of funds. The article offers recommendations to education professionals based on the Taller Alacran studio system. (Contains 16 notes.)