Patrick Fagerberg
Patrick Fagerberg
Patrick Fagerberg (2014)
Born
Richard Patrick Fagerberg

(1969-10-20) October 20, 1969
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Occupation(s)Artist, inventor
Websitepatrickfagerberg.com

Patrick Fagerberg (born October 20, 1969) is an artist, inventor and former lawyer, who is considered a rare case of acquired savant, a person who developed extraordinary abilities due to a brain injury.[1][2]

On the evening of March 19, 2011, while attending a concert at a music venue, a 400-pound (180 kg) camera boom collapsed and struck his head, causing a traumatic brain injury (TBI), resulting in memory loss and language processing problems.[3]

Following the accident, in an art therapy class, Fagerberg discovered a talent for painting. Three years after getting started, he opened his first exhibit in Houston. He has been represented by Gremillion & Co. Fine Art since then.[4]

Fagerberg is also the founder of RodaSurf, a new startup located in Austin, Texas. The company's first invention The RodaSurf, uses an atypical wheel placement on an electric skateboard to mimic the feeling of surfing on land.[5]

Early life

Born Richard Patrick Fagerberg on October 20, 1969, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Fagerberg was raised homeless with eight brothers and sisters, roaming around the American southwest and Mexico.[6]

His father, Albert P Fagerberg, was an American independent film producer and writer who also goes by the pen name "Albert Pennell". In his autobiographical work, Where Do We Go From Here?[7], published in 2005, Albert Pennell revealed he was the ghostwriter of Stand Up For America, the autobiography of the American politician George Wallace, published in 1976 by Doubleday & Company:

When I had finished the ghostwriting of Governor George C. Wallace's, little publicized autobiography, Stand Up for America, […] I found myself broke and stranded in Montgomery Alabama, with my wife and our eight children. (Pennell, 2005)[7]

In 1994, Fagerberg's career as a professional soccer player in Hamburg, Germany was forced to stop due to a knee injury. This injury led Fagerberg to follow in his brothers’ footsteps and take up law school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at Widener University Commonwealth Law School.[6]

In 1998 Fagerberg graduated from law school and moved to Austin, Texas, to practice law.[6]

2011 accident

Artist Patrick Fagerberg and OMD's lead singer Andy McCluskey, meet in Liverpool years after accident

On March 19, 2011, Fagerberg attended a show of the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) at the music festival South by Southwest (SXSW). A few seconds after the concert started, a 400-pound camera boom fell on the audience, injuring Fagerberg directly on the head, knocking him out for a few minutes. After being rushed to the hospital and running several tests and CT scans, Fagerberg was sent home that same night, as medics assured his neck was not broken and he had no obvious fractures on his skull.[8][3][4]

However, two days later, Fagerberg started having trouble with putting sentences together and reading. The following days, he began showing symptoms like "raccoon eyes" or periorbital ecchymosis, and bleeding from ears. This led to the discovery of a basilar skull fracture and he was soon diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Fagerberg spent the next year and a half attending physical therapy, cognitive therapy, and speech therapy.[3][6]

In 2011, Fagerberg sued Steve Madden, who had hired the videographer whose camera boom landed on Fagerberg's head. Fagerberg filed suit for negligence under the theories of respondent superior and ostensible authority, negligent hiring, and negligent supervision. He also sued the festival South by Southwest and the Stubb's BBQ music venue.[8][9]

Savant syndrome and art career

Patrick Fagerberg painting

During one of his cognitive therapy sessions, Fagerberg was suggested to do art therapy. While taking these classes, Fagerberg developed a sudden urge to paint, even though he had never painted before. In an interview for People's magazine, Fagerberg described this experience to writer Alex Heigl as a "little trigger going off", as it led him to start compulsively painting 20 hours a day.[4]

Fagerberg took Vincent van Gogh's art and Edvard Munch's The Scream as main inspiration. He studied these artists' artworks hundreds of times before getting started with his own paintings.[6]

A year and a half into painting and with 300 artworks under his name, he was introduced to Ronald Gremillion, art critic and owner of the Gremillion & Co. Fine Art gallery in Houston, Texas who decided to take Fagerberg on as an artist.[6]

Since the beginning of his art career, Fagerberg has been referred to as a rare case of Savant syndrome, in which people acquire savant-like skills in art, music and/or mathematics due to a brain injury.[10] Fagerberg's savant case is featured in the book The Savant Syndrome. Intellectual Impairment, Astonishing Condition by Dr. Osvaldo Cairó Battistutti (ASIN B08XR2DH3K), as one of the 60 known cases of this rare condition.

Fagerberg's artwork has been described as in living the realm of the sublime. Although abstract, its been said that his paintings seem to represent large scale, cosmical events. Dr Tacey A. Rosolowski, a PhD in Comparative literature and art critic, has said about Fagerberg's art:

like Expressionist predecessors such as Still and Mark Rothko, Fagerberg approaches abstraction as an act of representing fundamental natural processes and moments of becoming.[11]

Artist Jeannine Cook has also talked about the positive effect that art had in the recovery process of Fagerberg. She wrote an extensive blog post about it, where she says:

I think that artists (and those who become artists as the result of some traumatic experience) are incredibly lucky that they have a way to face and deal with the twists and turns of life that can be so devastating. [12]

Inventor

Patrick Fagerberg on The RodaSurf

Fagerberg holds a patent for the first electric vehicle to ever use an asymmetrical wheel placement. He decided to name his creation "The RodaSurf". RodaSurf's co-founder Starr Long, world renowned game developer, called this invention the "electric surfboards for the land".[5][13]

By taking a one-wheel and creating a snap and lock system onto a surfboard, they created, in 2020, a surfboard that can be ridden on the streets. The RodaSurf board is an accessory to the Onewheel XR electric skateboard.[14]

Fagerberg's street-surfing has been the subject of several press articles in Austin, Texas. He also appeared as a streetsurfer in the music video of the Austin-based hip-hop artist Reggie Lou, for his song Pinocchio.

Issues with the law

Struggling with his traumatic brain injury,  Fagerberg developed a severe cocaine addiction, which was fueled by the proceeds of his lawsuit settlement. His high levels of cocaine consumption would eventually lead him to be wrongly accused of being part of a distribution operation.[15] Fagerberg was arrested in 2014. It was later proven he had no connection with the distribution of said substances.[15]

In 2018, Fagerberg was once again in the news, after getting into a dispute with a man who was speeding 90 miles an hour down his neighborhood's street and almost killed his child. Fagerberg admitted to chasing him through the neighborhood after the incident in his own vehicle, coming to his window, punching him in the face and damaging the driver's vehicle.[16]

References

  1. ↑ "Patrick Fagerberg". Gremillion & Co. Fine Art. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  2. ↑ Brogaard, Berit (September 9, 2013). "Hidden Talent Unleashed : A miraculous encounter with a 30-foot steel camera boom". Psychology Today.
  3. 1 2 3 Bushak, Lecia (February 20, 2015). "Watch How A Traumatic Brain Injury Turned This Lawyer Into A Talented Artist". Medical Daily. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 Heigl, Alex (February 20, 2015). "Patrick Fagerberg, Texas Attorney, Becomes Painter After Head Injury". People.
  5. 1 2 Fitzsimmons, Burton (March 24, 2020). "Electric Surfboard for the Road? Surf's Up!". Spectrum News 1. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nevins, Todd (April 11, 2017). "Brain Injury Transforms Prominent Attorney into Impassioned Artist — Patrick Fagerberg". Medium. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  7. 1 2 Pennell, Albert (2005). Where Do We Go From Here. New Publisher. ISBN 1420834304.
  8. 1 2 "Some bad mojo at SXSW: Giant camera crane crashes into crowd injuring several people". Dangerous Minds. March 19, 2011. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Richard Patrick Fagerberg v. Steve Madden, Ltd.; SXSW, Inc. and W3 Event Specialists, Inc. Appeal from 261st District Court of Travis County (memorandum opinion )". Justia Law. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  10. ↑ Treffert, Darold A. (May 27, 2009). "The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1522): 1351–1357. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0326. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 2677584. PMID 19528017.
  11. ↑ Rosolowski, Tacey A., Fagerberg Essay
  12. ↑ "Reacting to Life Experiences as an Artist". Jeannine Cook. February 5, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  13. ↑ Ruiz, Amanda (March 11, 2020). "Local start-up Rodasurf plans to debut surfing to Austin streets". FOX 7 Austin. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  14. ↑ "RodaSurf Brings Innovation and New Meaning to 'Keep Austin Weird,' Electric surfboard for the street debuts March 14". PRWeb. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  15. 1 2 "34 In Custody In Connection With Austin-Based Drug Distribution Operation". www.justice.gov. December 15, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  16. ↑ Huber, Mary (March 1, 2018). "Austin attorney arrested after assaulting man, smashing car in road rage incident, affidavit says". statesman. Retrieved June 21, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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