Aethelred Eldridge

Æthelred Eldridge is an academic and "avant-garde" painter.

Æthelred Eldridge (born James Edward Leonard Eldridge on April 21, 1930 in Monroe Michigan) is currently an Associate Professor at the Ohio University School of Art where he has been educating since 1957. He teaches classes which are very well attended by many different disciplines of students and are presented in a very stream-of-consciousness-style. He was a college football player at University of Michigan and an officer of the US Navy prior to teaching.

He is most well known for his black and white art accompanied by esoteric writings inspired by William Blake. His artwork can be seen all around the world and specifically in the Athens, OH area. He is the founder of the Church of William Blake.

Æthelred is listed in the "Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes," a compendium of avant-gardes over the last two centuries compiled by author, artist and critic Richard Kostelanetz and published in January, 2001. The "Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes" characterizes his works as "self-described 'invective pamphlets' are both cryptically pedantic, and at times autobiographical, all within his own mythopoeia. ... Similar to the texts accompanying his images, his class lectures are themselves works of art. Æthelred weaves playful, sometimes invective speech tapestries with outlandish word associations, electrically charged phonetics and scrambled catchphrases that succeed or fail with his often baffled listeners."

Æthelred is father to nine children, and ex-husband to the artist Alexandra Eldridge

http://albionawake.org/
http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd01&DOCNUM=47180&TERMV=248:6:56720:6:123392:6:138742:6:159191:6:231264:6:231581:6:231780:6
http://www.athensi.com/view/story/40:5650
http://www.ohiou.edu/news/99-00/294.html