#rolfe kessler

[nanshe-of-nina]

Nancy Drew Posthumous Characters || The Haunted Carousel

Rolfe Kessler The work goes slowly, but it goes. I just completed the fifth horse, my favorite so far. I call him Foxfire, which is a phosphorescent fungus that grows on rotting wood. I’ve always thought fondly of that name. Every night music plays in the ballroom above my workshop, every night a hundred feet scamper back and forth overhead. When I complained to Mr. Rousseau, he said that if I worked in the daytime like everyone else, there would be no music to bother me. He doesn’t understand that I can only work when the world is as I feel—dark, dangerous, unknowable. But you understand, my darling wife. You are the only person on Earth who has ever understood everything that can be understood about me. And I miss you terribly.

Amelia Kessler But by 1921, his severe mood swings, and his angry insistence that that the horses he carved existed as living creatures in a parallel dimension, had finally driven his wife, Amelia, away for food. When he realized she was never coming back, he put down his carving tools and went looking for her. It took him two years to find her. She died of tuberculosis soon afterwards. No one knows what became of Kessler after that. Homeless, friendless, and now passionless, he simply vanished from history.  

Darryl Trent My father was a frustrated inventor. After he died, I discovered … that… in his study. In his will, he said he made it just for me. … My father said he invented Miles in order to reacquaint me with my childhood. It always bothered him that I was never as happy-go-lucky as he was.

[hotchkiss-and-tell]

Two Things:

Captain’s Cove being cursed because of the stolen horse is hooey. Because even though Kessler said a curse would be in effect if his horses were ever separated from the completed carousel, then this curse should have come up years ago when Mother Trent bought Glory off the carousel for Joy. The park should have a curse 20+ years old if anyone wants to believe that kind of thing.

And

You ever notice the zebra? How it doesn’t have any ornate carvings, a saddle or bridle, nor Kessler’s trademark black rose. Because of this, I think it’s the poor replacement for where Glory used to be on the carousel.

[thebrothershardy]

character aesthetics: rolfe kessler

[wanderingthroughwickford]

Also, I always loved how when you ask Bill Kessler if he’s related to Rolfe Kessler, he just goes “No idea.” In a series where everything is so often interconnected, sometimes to absurd extents, it’s funny (and realistic) to have that be blatantly averted for once. Because, yeah, most people upon being randomly asked if they knew if were related to an obscure carousel-maker from the 1910s wouldn’t be able to answer in the affirmative, either. 

[thebrothershardy]

ship aesthetics: amelia/rolfe

[blackmoor-beast]

Born in Austria in 1882, Rolfe Kessler was a small man who always felt more at home with animals than he did with people. He moved to the United States when he was twenty-one in hopes of riding racehorses. Unfortunately, his reclusive nature and poor social skills undermined any talent he had as a jockey. Out of desperation he began carving furniture out of wood scraps and selling it on street corners. In 1907 Kessler got an apprenticeship at the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, a top producer of carousels which employed many fine woodcarvers. He lasted a day and a half. But amazingly, using what he had learned at PTC, within a month he had carved a carousel horse in his father-in-law's garage. Within a year he had used this horse to convince the mayor of Zamboni, New York that the tiny coastal town should pay him to create a carousel. From 1910 to 1920, Kessler carved horses for four more carousels -- two in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Connecticut. In at least two instances, he agreed to lower his price in return for being given his own, private on-site workshop. His carousels always had two rows which included thirty horses and one chariot. But by 1921, his severe mood swings, and his angry insistence that the horses he carved existed as living creatures in a parallel dimension, had finally driven his wife, Amelia, away for good. When he realized she was never coming back, he put down his carving tools and went looking for her. It took him two years to find her. She died of tuberculosis soon afterwards. No one knows what became of Kessler after that. Homeless, friendless, and now passionless, he simply vanished from history. Kessler is all too often dismissed as a lunatic, a mere poser undeserving of respect because what made his work distinctive was in all probability the result of a chemical imbalance rather than true genius. This is not fair. No one can gaze into the painfully expressive eyes of one of Kessler's horses, or study the peaceful delicacy of his trademark black rose, and come away unmoved. They are works of art. To treat them as anything less says more about us, and our blind allegiance to conventional artists, than it says about them.

Professor Anton Sukov, Collectors' Hot Sheet Magazine