History of the CAC

The Cadillac Area Council For The Arts, commonly called the Cadillac Arts Council (CAC), is a Commission of the City of Cadillac. In 1968, the City of Cadillac applied for and received a Rural Arts grant for $10,500 from the Michigan Council of the Arts. The grant’s purpose was to foster the arts, and arts activities, in what was deemed a culturally underserved rural community. City staff members administered and received the grant for many years. As new arts organizations began to form, the City Council thoroughly vetted and approved requests for financial support, and the arts community flourished in Cadillac.

In 1974, the City Manager recommended a City Commission be formed specifically to manage the Rural Arts grant. This proposal would eliminate the need for the City Council to vote on every disbursement. On December 2nd, 1974, the City Council approved Ordinance 821, which officially formed a City Commission called the “Cadillac Area Council for the Arts” and defined its mission as follows: “The functions of the Cadillac Area Council for the Arts shall be to study, analyze and promote the cause of art as a cultural attribute to the city and its citizens, to cooperate with existing and future organizations interested in the various fields of art and to coordinate their activities so as to best promote and stimulate an interest in a comprehensive and considered plan for the promotion of art in the city, and to establish policies, standards and interest in the various cultural fields.”

Former Cadillac City Mayor Raymond Wagner appointed commissioners to the newly established Council for the Arts. Members included Ed and Muriel Stehouwer. The Stehouwers had already established themselves within the arts community of Cadillac by organizing a Messiah sing-a-long each December, which led to the formation of the Cadillac Area Symphony Orchestra. When the Rural Arts grant program was discontinued, the City Council honored its commitment to promoting arts in the community by continuing to fund the $10,500 award each year. The CAC has helped strengthen member groups through the annual grant program. The CAC supports Arts in Education by providing local schools with performing artists and artists-in-residence, as well as hosting the Annual Cadillac Festival of the Arts, which occurs every July. In recent years, the CAC has worked to place public art within the City of Cadillac.