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.

This journal page, for February 8, 1961, is incorrectly dated March 8. It includes a sketch of a detail from The American Dream I, with the comment "add: tilt." Indiana then records meeting Arthur Carr (a clinical psychologist, art collector, and friend) to see the Jasper Johns show (Drawings, Sculptures and Lithographs) at Castelli Gallery. He notes that the gallery's owner, Leo Castelli was there, and that Carr bought the lithographs "0–9." He also writes that they saw Jean-Luc Godard's film Breathless.