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.

In this journal page, which he began on February 11, 1959, Indiana records going to Macy's to purchase a Black & Decker electronic saber saw and a stapler gun, only to discover upon returning home that the stapler didn't work.

Indiana returned to the page a year later, on February 12, 1960, with a sketch of an untitled construction (later titled Pair) and a note recording the addition of a green stripe (cadmium green light). He comments that the decision to add the green stripe was not hard to reach, as the color had come off very successfully in another construction.

Indiana's journal entries often contain descriptions of his meals and choices in entertainment. Here he records watching a Mike Wallace interview of the actor Theodore Bikel and the 1939 film Son of Frankenstein.