Creative Arts Center of Dallas

The Creative Arts Center of Dallas (CAC) was founded more than 50 years ago as a visual arts school and community arts center geared to students and working artists of all skill levels and experience.  The Center was founded in 1966 by a notable Mexican-American artist, Octavio Medellin, whose legacy is being celebrated this year in hid first-ever museum retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA).  Although our roots are in Oak Cliff in the famed former studio of western artist Frank Reaugh called El Sibil, CAC now operates on a two-acre campus in Old East Dallas where it offers more than 500 classes and workshops a year in ceramics, clay sculpture, drawing, fiber, fused class, jewelry, mosaic, painting, printmaking, stone carving, and welding.  Led by a 12-member board of directors, the Creative Arts Center has a long history of nurturing generations of Dallas area artists by providing an outstanding faculty of professional teaching artists to ensure quality instruction to beginning, emerging and established artists. As a result, CAC has become one of the top adult art education destinations within North Texas.

Our Needs

The Creative Arts Center of Dallas has deep ties to the community. Committed to diversity and accessibility, CAC serves more than 10,000 people each year.  We offer numerous free outreach programs at no cost to participants.  Art As a Second Language consists of family-friendly drop-in arts programming, including Dallas Parks & Recreation, Dallas Public Library, Fair Park, Klyde Warren Park and others. held at various locations through Dallas.  ArtAbility serves young adults and adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities with free arts programming that is focused on not only accessibility and enrichment, but inclusion.  Camp MetalHead is a 12-year-old program for underserved and at-risk teens, ages 13 to 17, combining job skills training and arts instruction in welding and jewelry.  Encore is CAC's new creative aging program serving seniors at St Matthews Episcopal Church and Owenwood Farm and Neighborhood Space.  Run with the Pack is CAC's new teen mural painting program in which we have worked with the Bath House Cultural Center, Booker T. Washington HSPVA, the DMA and the Oak Cliff Cultural Center. Finally, unseenamerica is a program serving marginalized youth with an eight-week digital photography curriculum in which the students document their unseen lives culminating in a wide-reaching exhibit of their work.

CAC thrives on collaborations. We are just as likely to partner with a social service agency as it is with another arts organization. Select collaborations include the Austin Street Shelter, the Bridge Homeless Service Center, Cafe Momentum and Genesis Women's Shelter.  

It is through your support that we are able to do the work with do!  Help sustain the art programs you enjoy and share that joy with others by donating to the CAC scholarship fund, programs for underserved and marginalized children, teens and seniors, as well as those with special needs.