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.

His journal entry for July 25, 1961, includes a color sketch of the painting God Is a Lily of the Valley. Indiana comments that the cancellation of an appointment with art dealer Allan Stone gave him the opportunity to begin work on the last two medium-size canvases that he had available. He further notes that these represented the last of the canvases that the artist Richard Smith had given him.