As I was still a current art student during the period of hyperinflation did no good deeds for me. I couldn’t even buy any new brushes or paper without having to potentially sell my leg! It was definitely a rough time to still be living alone in what you would call barely a stable living condition. Everyday was a struggle and the state of the economy was not helpful. Sometimes I wondered how Marthe or some of my other friends handled this. I was almost done with school too so this situation just made everything even more difficult. My art professor was harder on us than ever telling us to “Use the adversity from the economy and express it into our artwork”. I didn’t know how. I remember barely being able to sleep and most nights I was hungry as even a loaf of bread or a pound of butter almost cost millions. As an artist I am very observant and I believe there were multiple reasons for this hyperinflation. I felt as though the economy was still suffering from the effects of World War I, when the German government had printed more and more money to pay for the costs of the war. This devalued the mark. In a way I felt the same way as the mark– devalued by myself though. I felt ashamed of what the economy was doing to my education, my social class. “How was I ever going to recover from this” I remember thinking to myself. Moving forward a little where a new currency reform was introduced, this gave me hope. I ended up finishing art school and eventually finding a job for myself. I was determined to get myself out of the “rathole” I was living in for the past few years. In a way I channeled the foundations of Expressionism and expressed my emotional experienced in many ways. 

I wanted to include these details about my avatar in this blog to further move along his story and give a deeper perspective on his living situation and how it was affected by the hyperinflation period. I researched how much some food cost during this time and how that obviously made it difficult to eat and live in general. I also wanted to keep tying my character’s connection to art in this blog by mentioning expressionism again and also how he might have navigated through art school with these economical challenges. I believe this would be historically accurate as the hyperinflation would push a lot of adversity, especially on someone in Richard’s situation

Lehnen, Christine. “1923: How Weimar Combatted Hyperinflation – DW – 01/01/2023.” Dw.com, 1 Jan. 2023, www.dw.com/en/1923-how-weimar-combatted-hyperinflation/a-64184767.‌