The summer of 2009 was one of the hottest on record in Austin. With 68 days of triple-digit temperatures, and many days significantly hotter than 100 degrees, it was the hottest summer in more than 150 years. We were also suffering from a two-year drought, even worse than the drought of record in the 1950s.
Due to the intense heat and lack of water, along with our severe watering restrictions, much of the visual relief we get in the summer from lovely green lawns and trees wasn’t there to be seen.
Nor was it there to be felt, with lake levels close to the all-time low set in 1951, so we also missed the usual physical relief we get from swimming and boating in area lakes.
These paintings reflect the feeling of intense heat and dryness that weighed down on Central Texas for our whole oppressive summer of 2009.