"[5] During her first summer in the United States, Maija Grotell travelled to Alfred University to work with Charles Fergus Binns.

Her skill with the potter's wheel proved beneficial for Grotell; she was often asked to demonstrate the technique and could easily find work teaching throughout New York City.

[3] In 1938, Grotell took a position as the head of the ceramics program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

When the position was offered to her the following year, Grotell feared she could lose her independence as a single woman and credit for her success would be attributed to her male colleagues.

Her dedicated work ethic eventually took its toll; in the early 1960s she developed a muscle condition that limited her ability to throw, which impacted her creative production.

In 1936 she was the first woman to win a prize in the Ceramic National and in 1938 was named a master craftsman by the Boston Society of the Arts and Crafts.