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Accident erased Laguna artist’s memory but gave her new talents

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Leigh Erceg can’t remember anything that happened before the accident.

Six years ago she was working on her family’s farm in Colorado when she fell 40 feet down a ravine, hitting her head several times along the way and damaging her spinal cord.

The brain injury erased her entire life’s memories, so she no longer remembered her family, her childhood or even the election of Barack Obama the year before. Now, her earliest recollection in life is of her rescue.

“All I remember is there was a sheriff saying, ‘Leigh, keep breathing,’” she said.

Erceg lost 41 years of memories, but something else took their place — newfound talents in art, physics, literature and dance.

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She was diagosed with acquired savant syndrome, a condition in which prodigious skills develop following brain trauma or disease. According to a recent study in the journal Scientific American, only 32 people in the world today have been diagnosed as acquired savants.

Now the former athlete, who once enjoyed skiing and hockey, spends most of her time in her artist’s studio in Laguna Beach, creating black-and-white Picasso-esque portraits.

“It’s like something was awakened in me,” said Erceg. “Everything is so remarkable because now I have these senses that are just phenomenal.”

Her work is now on display at the Alice-Rice Gallery in Laguna Beach.

After Erceg recovered from the accident — she was temporarily paralyzed but learned to walk again, and required plastic surgery and metal rods inserted into her face and neck — she realized that her doctors still hadn’t figured everything out.

She started seeing physics equations wherever she looked and splotches of color when she heard certain sounds. Other times she would abruptly get the urge to dance.

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“All of a sudden I began to tap in my Harley Davidson boots,” she said. “The music started enunciating, and I just kept dancing.”

So Erceg reached out to Berit Brogaard, a cognitive science researcher who runs the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research at the University of Miami. Brogaard performed a series of MRIs and cognitive tests on Erceg and had her artwork evaluated by experts in the field. Based on the findings, Brogaard diagnosed her with acquired savant syndrome.

“Savant syndrome is having an extraordinary talent in a narrow area compared to the person’s overall ability to function,” said Brogaard, who wrote about Erceg in her book, “The Superhuman Mind.” “You might see, for instance, a person with autism who can’t function in their daily activities, but if you say, ‘January 15, 2004,’ they can say, ‘that was a Thursday,’ but they can’t do more than that.”

Brogaard also diagnosed Erceg with acquired synesthesia, which she described as being “a connection between two areas of the brain that are not connected in the normal population.” This explains why Erceg reported being able to hear color and see sound.

Although it’s still unknown exactly how savant syndrome develops, Brogaard said that it has to do with the brain’s swelling and excitement after trauma, which can lead to the formation of new connections among different parts of the brain.

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Brogaard said researchers see links with autism.

“The people we have examined that have acquired savant syndrome have also developed autistic traits,” she explained. “In Leigh’s case, she has difficulty understanding social interactions and interpreting emotions.”

One area where Erceg does express emotion, said Brogaard, is her art.

Erceg uses thick black Sharpie markers to draw her portraits on white, 30-by-40-inch foam boards. The images, which include renderings of Bob Dylan and Albert Einstein, are then screened onto canvas.

Alice Hernandez-Gaona, co-owner of the Alice-Rice Gallery in Laguna Beach where Erceg’s work is showcased, said her method sets her apart from other artists.

“She does everything freehand,” she said. “The lines that she does, a lot of people who do that use a ruler or template. Her brain just goes nonstop without having to pause or think about making everything perfect.”

Erceg also stands out, Hernandez-Gaona added, because of her use of black and white instead of color and her use of Sharpies instead of oil paints or watercolors.

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“We get great responses to her work,” she said. “People think it’s amazing. They’re intrigued by her process and her story.”

Last year, Erceg moved to Laguna Beach so she could be part of an artistic community — something she couldn’t find in the small Colorado town where she had been living.

But along with her success, Erceg still struggles with everyday tasks stemming from her ongoing memory loss.

“Every day I wake up — every single freaking day — saying, ‘Ok, what happened yesterday?’” Erceg said.

She learned how to drive again but gets lost when she ventures out on her own. She can’t cook or make hotel reservations, and conversations that touch on history or politics quickly become confusing.

“She’s learning about things that as a 47-year-old woman she should know,” said Heidi Shurtleff, a friend of Erceg’s who also lives in Laguna Beach. “She called me one day after having lunch with someone and said, ‘What was this wall in Germany?’”

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So Erceg relies heavily on her iPhone to keep track of things, as well as Shurtleff, whom she calls “my memory.”

But Shurtleff said none of this has made Erceg bitter or angry.

“One of my favorite things about Leigh is that, yes, it’s very sad that she doesn’t know her family or have any memories of growing up,” she said. “But Leigh is not one to say, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ She doesn’t mourn the loss of a previous life. She just moves forward with what life is going to be instead.”

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The Alice-Rice Gallery will be holding an open house and reception for Erceg on Feb. 27. The gallery is at 484 N Pacific Coast Hwy.

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