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 May 11, 1962, includes a sketch of The Triumph of Tira. He documents a color change and "more radical reworking of [the] theme, particularly in [the] inclusion of [the] star words: law, cat, men and sin." He records being seized by a desire to update his old canvases, as there were too few pieces from each phase "to merit their retention and treasuring."

The page also contains a sketch of a stenciled number "25" in a red circle, a detail of a painting titled The Marine Works. Indiana goes on to describe his work on two of his herms, noting that he "blackened Zig tonight, irrevocably changing Zeus [an earlier title for the work] into a less pretentious stele," and added a "prominent front member [peg]" to it and Six.

Indiana also records a call from Campbell Wylly, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, who relayed that Jim Rosenquist had been in a article in Time magazine, but that, unlike Andy Warhol, none of his works were reproduced.