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 8–9, 1959. In his entry for September 8 Indiana records having breakfast alone at the Seamen's Church Institute, and receiving more mail than usual: an invitation and brochure from the Museum of Modern Art, an invitation to Robert Nunnelly's opening, and a picture for R. (Randy Muhleman, his former partner), which somebody had sent claiming it was from Indiana, addressed care of his birth name, Clark. Regarding the latter, Indiana writes "someone in Chicago really is in the dark!"

Indiana notes that his painting Oboli had suffered overnight, that there was bloom over its entire surface. He writes that he brushed it down with a clean, dry brush, and brought the color back to a bright red-violet hue.  He also records trying to do a blue and white color sketch as a variation on his work Chequers (untraced), but that he was so distracted that he splattered the whites and had to go over them with color, which was "very much the color of Particci's [his cat] eyes." The entry includes a sketch of this work, which he calls Dropped from the Top, with notes indicating that it is oil on paper, and pale terre verse, cerulean, and white.

In his entry for September 9 Indiana writes that he and J. (his partner, fashion designer John Kloss) went to the Museum of Modern Art, where he was able to get an extra pass so the two of them could have lunch in the air-conditioned garden room. He then went to the museum's library, and saw a drawing show. He records having dinner with Kloss at Soup Burg, and that after they sat at the Guggenheim and talked.