In the Documentary Painters Painting by Emile de Antonio, William DeKooning says that he makes things easy on himself by putting something in his paintings that he can hold on to. If for example he puts a photographic reference of eyes or a mouth on the canvas first it liberates him to paint. I have reversed this philosophy and taken a painting into a photographic reference. Niagara Falls is one of the most photographic landscapes in our culture, and the churning water directly references the brush work of DeKooning. The eyes not only echo my own use of cute as an allegory for art history, but DeKooning's own words.