Maria has many moods, and I have come to love each one of them. She can be emotional, sad, happy, curious, broody, thoughtful, full of discovery and love, always love. She is building a new family for herself – me, a half dozen friends, her art, the donkeys, her insatiable curiosity, and her love of nature.

She is also half Sicilian and half German, and occasionally that is reflected in her mood and expressions. She has the most expressive face and cries frequently, I hope to catch each of her moods in portraiture. She can go through a dozen moods in a few hours, I mean to capture each one of them. The one above is thoughtful.