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Do not touch.

It's the three-word Bible that most art museums live by.

Yet inside the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro-based artist Fritz Janschka has a piece on display that invites people to break this rule.

Rendered with bright watercolors and crayon, "Finnegan's Re-Turns" features depictions of various characters from James Joyce's novel "Finnegan's Wake" displayed on a rotating drum. The viewer is encouraged to rotate the drum in order to mix and match portions of each character -- the head, torso and feet -- to create their own character.

"The one guard there, she is always having to tell the people, 'Yeah, go ahead and touch it!'" Janschka says while laughing, something he does often.

Sitting in the studio of his Greensboro condo, Janschka (pronounced "yahn-shka") is always joking. He wears his smile comfortably as if he's given it decades of practice. Maybe it's because his studio walls are covered with reminders of so many friends - paintings and drawings from fellow artists, many of whom exchanged their work for his. There also are a few filing cabinets, a drafting table, a desk and, in the corner of the room, a tiny bed Janschka uses for cat naps.

"Every afternoon I take a nap, because when you get a little older, you need a recharging of the battery in the middle of the day, so I plug myself in the bed," Janschka says with a hearty laugh. "Then after three quarters of an hour, I come up and work again."

At 89, it's inaccurate to say that Janschka has lived a remarkable life because he continues to live one doing what he loves: making art.

An accomplished painter and sculptor, this life long artist grew up in Vienna and was later drafted by the Germans during World War II.

After his discharge, he went on to co-found the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism before moving to Philadelphia.

His artwork has been collected by such major international museums as the Belvedere Museum and the Albertina in Vienna, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadephia Art Museum.

He now lives in Greensboro with his wife, art historian Porter Aichele, and continues to create art every day.

Propelled by art and a love for life, Janschka proves every day that you can never be too old to enjoy what you love.

ART AND INSPIRATION

Born in 1919, Janschka started drawing as early as age 5. His father would encourage him to draw pictures of house guests who came over for drinks. By age 12, he landed his first commission painting a portrait of a butcher standing in front of his shop . According to Janschka, the butcher paid him in salami.

"He gave me a whole one," Janschka says. "I was so proud of it."

The only time Janschka did not work on his art was when he was drafted into the German army in 1939. He delivered messages for the Germans until he was wounded in duty and was discharged in Vienna.

Fighting in World War II provided the catalyst for Janschka's career in art. The government paid his tuition so he could attend the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. They also paid him a small stipend that he would later supplement by drawing cartoon sketches of executed criminals for a socialist newspaper.

When the war ended, he had the opportunity to study under Albert Paris Gütersloh, an author and former actor, who specialized in fantasy artwork. Studying alongside artists Arik Bauer, Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter, Gerhard Gleich and Anton Lehmden, Janschka and the group co-founded an art movement called Fantastic Realism.

Grounded by Gütersloh's emphasis on the fundamentals of Dutch realism, the movement was marked by exciting detours into religious and esoteric symbolism. Janschka was 10 years older than the rest of the students in the movement, and the only one who fought in the war, but he says the group got along very well, working together in a studio space with a bombed-out glass ceiling.

"We were more than getting along," says Janschka as he makes a drinking motion with his left hand. "We had festivities and police visitations."

Aside from hijinks with his art school colleagues, Janschka also began to draw, paint, and collage. Many of his pieces were inspired by the literary works of such writers as Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche and most importantly, James Joyce.

Then in 1947, he created "Where are you going?" is a painting German art critics have described as the greatest accomplishment of the Fantastic Realism movement. It was also the first painting the city of Vienna bought after World War II.

The work depicts a calamitous moment set on the dirt road of a crumbling village. A group of naked people, most of them women, stand among rocks with nothing but works of art to hide their bodies. Near the bottom-right corner of the painting stands a self-portrait of Janschka, clutching a painting of a crucifix.

The artist describes this work as something of a prediction because at the time he glued news clippings from American newspapers and magazines to the edges of the painting's frame.

"I was asking, 'Where are you going?' in that painting, so it was almost like I knew I was going," Janschka says.

Two years after painting the piece, Janschka would make his home in America.

AMERICA AND LOVE

Janschka moved to the United States in 1949 through an artist exchange program with Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. The college gave Janschka the opportunity to extend his residency, and he eventually worked for the school permanently. He enjoyed free time that the school gave him to pursue his craft, and he exhibited his work there annually.

It was during his time at Bryn Mawr that Janschka met his wife and life partner, Porter Aichele, who was a PhD candidate on her way to becoming an art historian. They married in 1976.

Aichele fell in love with Janschka as both a person and an artist. His first work that captured her attention was a series based on James Joyce's "Ulysses" which combined vintage photographs with etching.

"I marveled at the process, but also his imagination, and it just continues," she says. "You would think that an imagination would give out, but his never has.

"His greatest gift to me is his company. He's always full of ideas and he always makes me laugh."

And when Aichele was offered the chance to be head of the art department at UNCG, Janschka had no problem with supporting his wife by leaving Philadelphia for Greensboro.

"I will quote him because it's one of my favorite things that he ever told me," Aichelle says. "I asked him, 'Do you think you can move with me to Greensboro?' and he said, 'Porter, if I can leave Vienna, I can leave Philadelphia.'"

CREATION AND ETERNAL YOUTH

Art has given a lot to Janschka.

It gave him a dream as a child, a career as an adult and it helped him find the person who would become the love of his life.

Lately, it has also given him the steam to continue working long after many people his age have retired.

"Fritz doesn't live for retirement. He has an extraordinary inner strength," Aichele says. "He knows himself, he's amazingly generous, and because of his generosity, people give back to him and he draws on himself and what he reads, and all that feeds his imagination."
"I work almost all day long," Janschka says. "My wife said yesterday, 'You go to bed, you have worked 12 hours today!'" Janschka says, smiling. "She takes good care of me."

His most current project is something of an artistic remake of "Finnegan's Re-Turns," his movable paper sculpture at the Weatherspoon. Janschka says that when friend Penny Demetriades, co-owner of Zeto Wine Shop in Greensboro, saw the work, she wanted to buy it to display in her store.

He had a better idea.

"I said, 'Don't buy, I will make you one for a wine bottle.'"

So now the artist is working on a new cast of characters who can be mixed up and rearranged by Zeto's future patrons. Other than Bacchus, the Greek god of wine and intoxication, Janschka is also including a self-portrait as well as depictions of Demetriades and fellow owner Su Peterson.

Will the water colored versions of Demetriades and Peterson manage to keep their clothes on unlike many of the women in Janschka's artwork?

This question makes Janschka laugh, and from a back room in their apartment, Aichele says, "Probably not."

Laughing, Janschka adds, "They don't mind so long as they get extra equipment; they have a good sense of humor which is great."

As he approaches his 90th birthday, Janschka plans to continue making art so long as he has ideas and inspiration. He keeps himself healthy by taking water-walking classes at the Bryan Family YMCA, and he has started an illustrated adaptation of Voltaire's "Candide" as a gift for his wife.

If Janschka's personal Bible had only three words, his would probably read: "Do not stop."

"I tell my wife, not only do I have energies during the day, but I am always probing the world and going into space during the night," Janschka says. "It never stops, and I always keep working."

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