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's journal entry for May 22, 1962, includes a sketch of the fourth and last panel of the third "American Dream" (The Red Diamond American Dream #3), with notes that it is oil on canvas and measures 36 x 36 inches (square). Indiana records that there was an early morning ordeal in which the "big blue painting" was damaged, so he turned to work on the illustrated panel, and when done cleaned his brushes and called it a day in the studio.

He writes that he went uptown with J. (his partner, fashion designer John Kloss), who had a delivery to make. They went to the Museum of Modern Art, which he describes as a "full house of new exhibits," including a figure show, which was "not nearly as bad as [the] catalogue makes out." Afterwards they went to see the 1961 British film A Taste of Honey at the Paris Theater.