Art for Life

Muffet Dolar Villegas started her passion in drawing and painting in watercolor at the age of three. She finished her Mass Communication Degree in Silliman University where she also took fine arts lessons from American artists Louise Oxtoby Carey and Filipino artist Efren Garcellano.
Muffet honed her talent as an artist under the close supervision and guidance of Dr. Albert Faurot, a noted international figure in art and music who taught in Silliman University for many years. She had her first painting exhibition at the Silliman Library in 1979. It was followed by numerous group and one-man-show exhibitions locally, nationwide and abroad.
She taught and organized art workshops which started with street children in 1984 and now, she also includes children with cancer and other kids.
Muffet had spent time learning art from American contemporary artists and visiting noted art museums in the United States in the Summers of 2001 and 2004.
Currently, she divides her time painting, writing a weekly newspaper column in Negros Chronicle, teaching and radio broadcasting at Foundation University Greyhound 101 FM radio where she trains young communicators. She considers interaction as a vital need for inspiration.
Married to Pastor Andrew Villegas with three children, Joaquin, Magenta and Dan Paul, she considers being a mother and wife as her first and foremost roles.
She paints in oil and acrylic but her favorite medium is watercolor that she finds very challenging and expressive medium.
She sees painting as a unique gift from God where the painter pours his own life into inanimate objects like paints, brushes and canvasses to transform God’s creation into a lively, joyful and meaningful experience. She used painting as a therapy while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer three years ago. Instead of counting sheep to sleep, she chooses a riotous journey through colors while others are sleeping. Her colors convey hope,joy and peace.
She stressed that even a negative experience like cancer can be turned positive if one can use it as a force to fuel our imagination and share with others, when we realize that life can be short and fleeting.
As a result of that experience she became a cancer advocate. Driven by pain and passion, she recently held a one woman show “Art for Life” and another art exhibit “Pink October”, for the benefit of a local cancer support group Flame of Hope.