Can I take back an artist statement I invented for my friend's blue painting?
Funny'Send me the bit about urban loneliness,' my friend Mina said. 'I'd like it beside the painting.'
Mina painted a blue rectangle with a yellow corner. At her house I made up a solemn gallery description: 'An exploration of urban loneliness, interrupted by the possibility of toast.' She laughed. I thought we'd finished the joke.
She's lending the painting to a small display at our community hall and now wants the first half of my description as her artist statement. She says it sounds better than her actual reason, which was that she had plenty of blue paint and wanted to see what the corner would do.
I can see the painting that way, but I didn't know her intentions when I said it. Is it fine for her to adopt an interpretation afterwards, or should I help her write something that doesn't turn my confident gallery voice into the history of her painting?