Background: Wolf's parents collected art on family trips, and she began buying inexpensive pieces as a teenager. Now her home is full of paintings and sculpture she has brought back from her travels to Brazil and other Latin American countries. She also collects folk art by U.S. artists. Wolf is founder and CEO of a medical staffing company.

Frank Niemeir / AJC (ENLARGE)

'I love all the work that went into it,' folk art collector Deborah Wolf says of 'Parcheesi House,' by self-taught Mississippi artist Elayne Goodman. 'There are so many different things in it, yet she finds balance.'

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Collecting focus: Wolf regularly buys pieces at art fairs in Brazil as well as at Folk Fest, the big annual folk art sale in Norcross. Her collection includes work by such well-known folk artists as Georgia's own Howard Finster and Tubby Brown, and by little-known Latin American self-taught artists whose work she bought on the street.

Favorite piece: "Parcheesi House," undated, by self-taught Mississippi artist Elayne Goodman. Wolf bought it for $400 last year at Folk Fest. Wolf has more than a dozen pieces by Goodman. She lines up outside the doors at Folk Fest to have first dibs on Goodman's latest offerings. The artist is now in her 70s and her brightly colored work is full of humor. (One of the pieces in Wolf's kitchen is "Mona Lisa Pizza," a single-size pizza pan with miniatures of the "Mona Lisa" placed like pepperonis atop a jeweled pizza.) Her work often features objects found at yard sales, such as an old fan or golf tees.

Why she likes it: "I love all the work that went into it. There are so many different things in it, yet she finds balance. I like the humor and the cleverness in the way she reused so many different things. She included egg timers, faces that originally were from a Halloween candelabra, pincushions, a flamingo. I like the deer head with the crossed guns. Who would have thought of all these things?"

My Favorite Piece is a way to let Atlantans talk about the best-loved works in their collections. If you have a suggestion, email Kirsten Tagami at ktagami@ajc.com.