[1] She studied art on the undergraduate level at Brooklyn College, CUNY (BA 1973) with Lucas Samaras, Ronald Mehlman, David Sawin, Morris Dorsky, Murray Israel and Walter Rosenblum.
During that time, she was a research assistant to Gerry MacAllister, the Director of the Mandeville Gallery, which put her in contact with artists such as Suzanne Lacy, Mary Beth Edelson, Miriam Shapiro and Barbara Smith.
Newton and Helen Harrison were growing catfish, brine shrimp and orange trees and beginning to develop their dialogue-based, map-like proposals with the Lagoon Cycle.
Visitors included Yvonne Rainer, William Wegman, Laurie Anderson, Peter Frank, the Kipper Kids and Paul McCarthy.
David Ross, a curator at the Long Beach Museum of Art, had managed to commandeer a channel on the Hilton's closed circuit TV.
The broadcasts included Suzanne Lacy in her hotel room tending to a bedridden, dead sheep[4] and a talk show moderated by Ross where Harry Kipper was interviewed, and Linda Montano threaded dental floss up her nose and pulled it out her mouth.
During the project, Maksymowicz met and worked with visual artists Ursula von Rydingsvard, Willie Birch, Herman Cherry, Cynthia Mailman, Susan Share, Dawoud Bey and Christy Rupp; writers/poets Judd Tully, Bob Holman and Sandra Esteves; and dancers Audrey Jung and Jane Goldberg.
[9] During this time, she crossed paths with Lucy Lippard, Herb Perr, Greg Scholette, Jimmie Durham, Faith Ringgold, Clarissa Sligh and Emma Amos, as well as many activists and feminist artists.
Home of Model T, originally exhibited at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, was shown in New York as part of "Precious: An American Cottage Industry of the Eighties.
Other works from this period include Excess Assets, Homeless Woman Kills Wall Street Financier and Stayin' Alive, the latter of which was shown in the windows of 10 on 8 in Manhattan.
Maksymowicz continued her affiliation with the Women's Caucus for Art, and her work began to shift more decisively towards the female body as social metaphor.
Lily of the Mohawks, which treats the life of Kateri Tekakwitha, who has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, was made in response to a call for artworks by the [16] addressing the cinquecentennial of Columbus's arrival in the new world.
She has been a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome (2006; 2012; 2014), an artist-in-residence at the Powel House Museum in Philadelphia (2006–07), and a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center (2007).