Lonie became involved in the feminist art scene in Wellington; she was part of the artist Joanna Paul's project "A Season's Diaries" in the late 1970s and a founding member of the Women's Gallery in 1980.
[7] In the 1980s Lonie moved back to Dunedin, where she went to teachers' college and taught at Otago Girls High School.
[1] In 1998 she completed her master's degree with a thesis titled Image and Word in the Production of Meaning in Art Therapy.
[1] Under her leadership the school introduced a three-year degree programme, expanded its space and held a conference for art educators.
In 2020 under her leadership the school held a symposium titled Mapping the Anthropocene in Otepoti/Dunedin — Climate change, community and research in the creative arts.