Bid Twelve: Water Play
This 18-inch-by-24-inch oil painting on canvas entitled Water Play by Jerome Hamilton provides a glimpse into Jerome’s own boyhood in southern Wisconsin. He painted it in 1971 just before enlisting in the US Marine Corps, where he became an analyst and additionally a drug & alcohol addiction counselor. During the time of its painting, Jerome made a living by hustling pool at the local pool halls in Madison, Wisconsin, and he learned for the first time in his young life how susceptible he was to major bouts of depression. He recorded in his journal in 1971 that he used painting as a way to escape his surroundings as he seriously contemplated taking his own life, and he broke into uncontrollable crying spells as he painted this painting, partly out of realization that he might never again play with such a carefree spirit. When he volunteered to become a US Marine in late 1971, he fully expected to die in the Viet Nam conflict, and he was surprised to have survived that war by the time his tour of duty ended in 1975. He placed this and 23 other paintings from his Wisconsin Nostalgia into storage while in the Marine Corps, thinking that perhaps his days of painting were behind him. With GI Bill money, he returned to college to finish several degrees by 1981, when he returned to military service as a US Air Force judge advocate. Fortunately, in the Air Force he found time to paint again. His depression grew steadily more intense nonetheless. As with all of the Wisconsin Nostalgia collection in Jerome’s control by 2003, he donated it as one in a group of 10 to a private collector in Illinois. At the time of the donation he mentioned that his nostalgia never brought him joy, wealth or fame. Nonetheless, Jerome retained all rights to produce and sell archival quality prints.
The minimum opening bid: 2.0000 Bitcoins per giclee print of any size. The largest print is roughly 24-inches-by-36-inches, and smaller sizes can be ordered although the price remains the same.
An overview of the bid process is provided on the page named Art of Jerome Hamilton.
Instructions to bid:
1) Submit bids as micro increments of Bitcoin or equivalent other currencies based on the exchange rate at the time of bid. Bitcoin will serve as the base currency for all transactions.
2) Bids submitted implicitly carry a guarantee to remain a firm offer to purchase until the close of bidding, which shall be 10 days after submission of the first qualifying bid.
3) Submission of a bid shall be accomplished by a registered member with a valid email address listed in his or her profile who posts the bid as a comment on the http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com page associated with the particular art work.
4) Bids may be increased or withdrawn by similar posting.
5) A qualifying bid shall remain a legal offer until withdrawn, and that offer shall be conditionally accepted if after the bidding closes it is the highest bid price. ‘Conditional acceptance’ includes verification by Jerome Hamilton or his agent that the bidder is a registered HFS user with a valid email who personally represents his or her financial ability to cover the bid and who has returned a signed conditional contract. Usually this involves email correspondence directly between Jerome and the bidder.
6) The winning bid will be obvious to the world based on bid-comments published at the http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com page associated with the art work. Also, the conditional contract will be counter-signed by Jerome Hamilton and a copy sent via email promptly after closing of the bid period. At the specific date and time of that email with the attached, signed contract, the bid will become a binding contract and the transaction will proceed privately.
7) If a bidder fails to return the signed conditional contract, his or her bid shall be removed and disqualified.
8) If a bidder fails to honor his or her contractual obligations, arbitration under the contract will be pursued. The standard arbitration clause will be published and revised from time to time to let the world know how arbitration works for a transaction at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com. The most recent revision of the arbitration clause is found at http://hamiltonfinanceservices.com/?p=2265.
9) If a bid is disqualified or a contract dishonored, the status of that bid or contract will be published in relation to the auction of the piece of art contemplated in that transaction with the user name, not the personal name (unless those names are the same), of the defaulting bidder/buyer.
