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 page for April 7, 1962, includes a sketch of a detail from his painting The Rebecca, with notes indicating the addition of blue cobalt to the already gessoed numeral 8, and the work's measurements, 5 x 4 feet.

Below the sketch Indiana describes a studio visit from Dorothy Miller, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, commenting that "she liked what she saw immediately in [the] studio, hitting immediately on 'Star' & 'Year of Meteors' as being likely candidates for Governor Rockefeller's collection. . . . She herself seemed most interested in a [construction] for her own, but [could] not decide on [which] she liked. She said [that] she would bring Alfred Barr [the first director of the Museum of Modern Art] down & decide then."

Indiana writes of Miller's decision to include him in her next "Americans" show at the museum in 1963, adding that "She prefers [to] keep [this] under wraps as long as possible. Asked my confidence." He mentions that Miller looked at his slides and asked for a selection for the museum, and that, as she was leaving, she asked after Lenore Tawney. Indiana recommended that Miller visit Tawney's studio if she and Barr came downtown.