Friends of David James "D.J." Watson don't need a fancy, catered gallery opening to know he's an artist.  One look at his piercings and tats give a hint at his creative nature but a glance at his living room seals the deal.

"My home is my gallery," he said.  "It's where we let it all hang out.  I can't make myself get rid of anything."

In one corner of his living room lies an old eight-track tape player with protruding large silver knobs, encased in that 70s-style fake-wood pattern metal shell.  But that's just the canvas.  Watson created the art by covering the tape player with cut out magazine words and pictures in classic decoupage style, creating a 3-d effect.  Works of art hang on the walls that incorporate screw drivers and doll body parts with the subject matter flowing over and onto the frames themselves.

"I like to make the frame part of the art, instead of just being something around it," he said.  "It's easy to look around and see something–see how I want to change it–to remake it."

Whether it's an old piece of furniture or a piece of wood, Watson said he usually lets the art come to him, but admits occasionally going to Michael's or "dumpster diving" for supplies.

He said he has always been fascinated with art and loved cartoons, cereal boxes, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and the "Wizard of Oz."  When he was nine years old he hung around his step father's tattoo shop in Rome, GA., and he said it influenced his art in a big way.  He was once commissioned by an attorney in Rome to create his own take on the blind "scales of justice."

He said he's influenced a great deal by the writings of Nietzsche and the paintings of Salvador Dalí.

"I don't want to censor myself," he said.  "Sometimes its very dark and all about the mind.  I want to live in an atmosphere full of art.  I can't imagine living without it."