Robert Indiana kept a series of illustrated journals during the late 1950s and 1960s, in which he discusses the development of his work as well as his daily life on Coenties Slip.

Indiana often referenced current events in his journals, and in his journal entry for August 7, 1961, he records that Gherman Stepanovich Titov had made a safe landing (after orbiting the earth multiple times, the first person to do so), noting "it orbits in 25 hours, traveled over 40,000 miles: approximately [to] the moon and back! [The] leap [to] [the] universe now seems probable."

Indiana also records stenciling the red letters (second coat) on "Slip Painting" (The Slips), and applying the first coat of "The Geography of the Memory" (Columbus: The Geography of the Memory). The entry includes a sketch of the latter painting, with the note "raw Sienna gr[ound] with red letters."