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 December 5, 1961, Indiana records undertaking his first drawing of what he "propose[s] to be a daily schedule." He notes using the American Hay Company stencil (a ninetieth-century brass stencil which he had found in artist Lenore Tawney's studio) and creating a pencil impression, the "same words and forms, but a very different quality." The American Eat (1962) is one example of these drawings.

Indiana then writes that he went uptown with J. (his partner, fashion designer John Kloss) to select a pot belly stove ("a hard decision"), and later to the Graham Gallery for the opening of James Harvey''s exhibition. He notes that art critic Gene Swenson and clinical psychologist and art collector Arthur Carr were also there, and that "Jim [was] flushed with drink and excitement."