She expressed her ideas with a visual vocabulary that was "geometric and gestural, abstract and figurative, decorative and raw, lyric and muscular.
She also studied at Boston University, where her teachers included Conger Metcalf and Walter Tandy Murch.
[7][11][12] As a couple, they traveled to South America, spending time in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and Peru.
Katherine Porter's concern for the political and social conflict in South America is shown in many of her works, including Swann's Song (1975).
[14] She was part of The Studio Coalition in Boston's South End, combining artistic and political concerns.
[13] During this period, works such as her Swann's Song (1975) built upon a grid to achieve three-dimensional effects.