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 is the first of two pages of Indiana's journal entries for May 31–June 1, 1962.

In his entry for May 31 Indiana writes that he got up late after a few frenzied days, and called his gallerist Eleanor Ward: "she will be down in another week or so . . . then she will head for a summer in Connecticut, and invited J [his partner, fashion designer John Kloss] and I for a weekend there in Old Lyme. Gave a green light [to] a week’s show in Truro on [the] Cape. She herself gave some small paintings [to] Rosa [Esman] for Tanglewood [Gallery]. A check from Rosa [this] morning for [the] one [that] went [to] Buffalo, I presume. $66.60 for Up."

He also notes that Ward said she would discuss details pertinent to the exhibit (his first solo show in New York, which opened at the Stable Gallery October 16 that year), such as advertising and reviews, on her next visit.

In his entry for June 1 Indiana records working on The Triumph of Tira, applying more gesso, introducing yellow paint, painting out the sienna danger stripes at the bottom, and changing the painting's letters from a dark red to an overpainted cadmium red light. He also notes destroying two old canvasses, "both overpainted jobs of no consequence," one being the "large single ginkgo . . . wh[ich] was once white and blue and hung for year above my beams."