On a bright, brisk Florida day at the Conservation Park in Panama City Beach, Tammy Marinuzzi’s stride is purposeful as she makes her way along uneven pine-lined trails, a chilly breeze lightly teasing treetops. Daily walks like this—in many different places—have become an important part of her life over the past ten years. Marinuzzi, an artist and educator, is well known for her widely exhibited ceramic work, in turn both whimsical and evocative. She’s also been a beloved art professor at Gulf Coast State College for nearly two decades, with further educational experience that includes time teaching at the University of Florida, the Skopart Foundation in Greece and the Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry, India. These facets of her practice—pottery and education—along with a particularly formative period spent in India, led her to begin a project of great personal significance in 2015: Pondi Walk. Pondi Walk has been a journey of nearly 10,000 miles over the past ten years, and it’s very near completion. In addition to a symbolic finish at 9,514 miles, the project will culminate with a solo exhibition at The Light Room in Panama City, Florida, opening February 21 2026.
Marinuzzi’s journey began, as they say, with a single step over 20 years ago when she temporarily relocated to Pondicherry, India, to teach at Golden Bridge Pottery. Her interactions with local and village potters led her to a better understanding of the challenges disadvantaged young women face in the region, including child marriage. As Marinuzzi dug deeper, she discovered that impoverished women were further hindered in their efforts to build better futures due to their daily water-carrying obligations. “I started researching, and I came to find out a girl might walk some three to eight miles a day to get water,” she explains. “Because of these responsibilities, they may not be able to go to school or finish their education,” Marinuzzi recalls a story she’s heard of an organisation that, to overcome these very real limitations, sent teachers to the wells to educate the girls while they waited for water. Her research, and stories like this one, as well as her personal experience in Pondicherry, got Marinuzzi thinking about ways she could call attention to these circumstances.
“Here I am, an educator, a potter, a woman—I’m all these things, but my destiny has been different,” she says. “This is how it started. The walking is a metaphor for thinking about women globally, it’s an opportunity to take an hour to pause during my day, and reflect on the women globally who must walk daily—often without access to the things I take for granted—basic needs such as water, food, and education.”
As she was developing the concept of Pondi Walk, Marinuzzi resolved to walk the equivalent of the distance between her home in Northwest Florida and Pondicherry, in Southern India. “Pondi Walk began as a personal journey—both literal and reflective—but it has since evolved into something larger,” says Marinuzzi. In the last ten years, she’s covered over 9,000 miles, averaging 951 a year, with only a few hundred left to go before she reaches her goal. Along the way, she’s taken photographs, creating a visual walking journal, a body of work that both documents physical locations but also serves as a reflection of her contemplative mindset. It’s work from this documentary approach that will be on show at The Light Room in 2026. Over the years, Pondi Walk has also created numerous opportunities for social engagement, from community-oriented projects to workshops, public lectures, and exhibits, all “designed to inspire awareness and action,” explains Marinuzzi.
Additionally, the artist is using her walking as a way to raise funds for a nonprofit in Southern India, Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project, a school in Tamil Nadu that provides an education for one child per family from villages experiencing extreme poverty. “Initially, I had hoped to return to India to reconnect with the children of Thuvaradimanai, a small pottery caste village in Southern India, and explore how I might support their futures,” says Marinuzzi. However, though her commitments as an artist, educator, and mother prevented her physical return, her continued research led her to Shanti Bhavan as an alternate avenue in need of support; she found their mission closely aligned with her own goals for this project. Since its founding in 1997, this organization has provided possibilities for children who would otherwise be most vulnerable—in the case of girls, their efforts have reduced child marriage rates, but for both boys and girls, they’ve helped drive a small-scale shift away from generational poverty. Shanti Bhavan’s support offers a rare opportunity to break the cycles that prevent upward mobility.
Currently, Marinuzzi is seeking sponsors for every 100 miles of the walk in an effort to raise one dollar per mile, with donations to go to further Shanti Bhavan’s efforts in Southern India. Her goal is to raise $9,514, which can cover all costs associated with sending a girl to school at Shanti Bhavan for five years.
For more on Marinuzzi’s project, including a selection of images from her walking journal and details on her upcoming show at The Light Room, follow her on Instagram @pondiwalk. Those interested in sponsoring Marinuzzi’s project or donating to Shanti Bhavan should contact Tammy Marinuzzi at tmarinuzzi@gmail.com.
