In 1963, Sterne was granted a Fulbright Fellowship in painting, and spent more than a year working in Venice. Returning to New York in 1964, Sterne eschewed pressure to create a consistent and "marketable" style of artwork. She would express aversion to the idea of creating a "career" as an artist, preferring instead to follow her own path of expression and discovery. Her work of the 1960s and forward is often regarded as a progression of "series," following Sterne's ongoing and developing interests in visual perception, semiotics, existentialism, and meditation.