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 his journal entry for March 20, 1962, Indiana records that he got up early to be ready for a friend who was stopping by to pick up keys, and for art critic Gene Swenson, who was coming by to pick up photographs for his article ("The New American ‘Sign Painters’," which was published in the September 1962 issue of ARTnews). He writes that Swenson was "not talking about [the] article, explaining [that] he had put it in [the] drawer to set, and said only [that] he had not met [Jim] Dine or [Roy] Lichtenstein." Indiana notes giving him photographs of Gas Works (The American Gas Works), The Great Reap, and the Giant Reap (The American Reaping Company).  

Indiana ends the entry commenting, "then, for me, back [to] [the] problem at hand: finishing all [the] small canvas for Ruth [Kaufman]." This is a reference to the works which would be shown in the exhibition Indiana / Natkin, curated by Kaufman and opening at Stubbing and Greenfield Gallery, Mamaroneck, New York, on March 24.