Artist profile — Michelle Robideaux-Pent

By Ant Perrucci

Michelle Robideaux-Pent opened her front door and the first thing I noticed was that her house had a door in the living room.

Not a door to another room, or anything, but a door leaning up against the wall, painted, written upon and clad in gold leaf.

“To me, a door represents taking initiative,” Robideaux-Pent said.

It’s an interesting statement to make, especially considering Robideaux-Pent’s pedigree. Born in West Palm Beach, but a resident of St. Augustine “since junior high,” she attended Florida Atlantic University in the early 1960s, where she majored in art education.

As a junior in college, Robideaux-Pent took her very first art class – Art for the Elementary Education Major.

“Because I didn’t really have a strong background, I was just playing. I became really absorbed. It was just a place where I could survive,” she said.

Art then became Robideaux-Pent’s thing.

“It put me more in touch with the right side of my brain. I tend to be kind of reserved,” she said.

“Of course, you live in a counter-culture today,” she said, but back then, “we didn’t. It was fun.”

For 23 years Robideaux-Pent was an art teacher, including time teaching at Nease and Pedro Menendez high schools. Nowadays, she spends her retirement years continuing to teach.

“I’ve taught all ages. Little tiny kids to adults. I see myself more as a facilitator,” Robideaux-Pent said.

“I did not learn well under people telling me what to do,” she said, thus her approach with learning and teaching art is a process.

“When you try something and it doesn’t work, it’s valid,” Robideaux-Pent said, since one can document past work and learn for the future.

Despite producing her own art, Robideaux-Pent said she will willingly put her work on hold.

“There’s such a glut of art out there,” she explained, “[that] I don’t really feel the need to reproduce what I’ve already done.”

“I find myself having nothing to say because I don’t like clichés,” Robideaux-Pent said. “[They’re] so ho-hum and boring.”

“What is hard,” Robideaux-Pent said, “is facing your fears and doing something outside of your comfort zone.”

Which brings us to the door.

“I like the ambiguity” of art not defining something, Robideaux-Pent said.

“It keeps it from becoming a closed door.”