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 journal page covers September 14–15, 1959. At the top of Indiana's entry for September 14 is a small sketch of a work titled Terre Verte. Indiana does not make any reference to this work in the text. Regarding the day he writes: "a wedding, and opening, a peculiar raid by David Herbert into the confines of my private life." Concerning the latter he explains that Herbert wanted an invitation to spend a weekend at Arthur Carr's cottage in Fire Island, and that he had been very persistent, particularly as he had made no overtures of friendship or concessions regarding his gallery, which was meant to open soon.
Indiana records that the wedding (of John Barnes) was an informal affair at Trinity, followed by an excursion into the Catskills. The opening was Robert Nunnelly's, at Condon Riley, and he writes that "staying there for an hour of the three was a considerable chore." Among those attending the opening were Herbert, and artists Leon Smith, Sven Lukin, and Ed Plunkett. He also mentions a call from Carr, asking for more specifics on a painting, for which Indiana wanted $135 for in order to cover rent.
In his entry for September 15 Indiana writes that after breakfast he turned to his fourth large panel, "finding it most auspicious to do it in red," as the day marked the visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the United States, the first visit by a Soviet leader. He notes that it was also the day of his mother Carmen's birthday (plus one month, as she was born in August), and that, unknown to him at the time, the Poe Elementary School in Texas had been bombed, killing six. However, Indiana did not have enough red paint and lacked money to buy more, so he used cobalt blue instead: "not at all a disappointment very grave, for there is a reason of continuity involved plus the fact that my favorite small sketch is in blue (blue with 4 bl[ack] orbs). But I do not think that I shall repeat the black orbs—two in this case as this is the most austere composition after Oboli . . . the two parts being separated by the thinnest line (yet)."
A sketch of the work is at the bottom of the page, with notes indicating its colors (cobalt and white), medium (oil on Homasote), and dimensions (8 by 4 feet).
