Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

‘Tis the Season, after all. Elvira, the busty mascot of the macabre and subject matter of choice for drag queens for decades, goes hand-in-cleavage with Halloween. A wry wit and penchant for self-aware humor, she’s like the perfect combination of Cher and Dolly Parton (which may explain drag queens’ love for her), mixed in with a little Bela Lugosi for luck.

Either way, we love her. This portrait of Elvira was performed by Will Wood in a single session on a client who came down from Indiana. It seems Will’s reputation precedes him.

If you would like to get one of these award-winning portraits from Will, just click the ‘Set an Appointment’ tab on this website and we’ll reach out to you ASAP. A little food for thought though, Will is currently booking for the 1st quarter of 2025, which, once tax refund season kicks in, is our busiest time of year, so if you want to get in anytime within the next 6 months, you’ll want to schedule something now!

$20 Piercing Day

On Saturday, September 28th, starting promptly at noon, Lighthouse Tattoo will be offering all piercings except for dermal anchors for $20, a savings of over 30% from our normal rates! We expect a lot of traffic, so since our parking lot is so small, we are asking our clients to park across the street. Please do not park next door, as they will tow.

On Thursday, September 26th, we will be taking prepaid appointments for 15 minute windows, in order to help reduce wait times (something we’ve learned from our Friday the 13th forays). Starting at noon on the 26th, you can call Lighthouse Tattoo, pay your 20$, and schedule your 15 minute window of time. This will ensure you can receive quick service and we highly recommend it, as spaces will be limited. Due to an expected high volume of phone traffic, we will ONLY be taking appointments for $20 Piercing Day on Thursday the 26th.

It's Almost CrimeTime!

That creepy little kid from the original Stephen King Pet Sematary movie still gives me the willies. The latest addition to Mike’s Stephen King tribute leg sleeve, you can just see the top of IT’s head peaking out from under the murderous little chap. Who’s ready for Halloween!?!

Dean's Diva!

This depiction of a Viking woman on Dean’s inner bicep is part of a sweet sleeve started by our own Dave Fux and completed by Will while Dave was our with an injury. An exquisite piece, we’ll be posting the healed photos soon.

Comic Books are Awesome

Billions of dollars in Marvel movies can’t be wrong. We love the physics-defying powers of superheroes and the cut-and-dry world of hero/villain and that the hero always wins in the end. It just feels right to us. That sense of justice is ingrained into as children. We learn it playing tee ball, soccer, or any activity that socializes us in a competitive environment. We learn that the rules matter because without them, there’s no point in playing.

In a world without rules, winning becomes meaningless. Taking home the prize becomes the only goal and the value of competition, the point of which should be to push oneself to become better, elevating the entire field, gets perverted into a melee for a prize without honor. We see it almost daily on the news. Transgender athletes, abortion rights, the presidential race, DEI, it’s all quite the can of worms, isn’t it?

When winning becomes more important than being the best, we all lose. Comics tried to teach us at in the early days. The ideal of victory in battle as being a moral victory has been a theme of history. Not that the ends justify the means, but that the victor in the end was the result of superior morality. Superman didn’t beat Lex Luthor just because he was more powerful, he did because he HAD to, because he was right. Because Luthor was EVIL. and good had to beat evil, right?

Right?

We love comics because they make everything so simple. Good vs evil, right vs, wrong. And the good guys always win in the end. We love them because of the nostalgia of our youth, because once you’re grown up, you realize the world doesn’t work that way. You realize that sometimes, lots of times, the bad guys get exactly what they want and there’s no one to hold them accountable. Shitty bosses on power trips; angry Karens trying to ruin your life to feel mighty and fill a void in themselves; THE GOVERNMENT. lol.

In a world where it seems like the rules don’t matter because people are more interested in moving the goalposts to suit their own ends, passion for the simplistic world of comic books is easy math. Comics are awesome because they reinforce the ideal that it will all work out in the end, to keep the faith during the difficult times and that it will all be worth it, nor matter how tough the climb. In the current age, we need a Tony Stark and a Steve Rogers to look to just to keep from being driven insane by an insane world.

So what does NASCAR have to do with tattoos?!?

Will, our beloved benefactor, can tell you where he was when Dale Earnhardt was killed. he’d been raised in a household that understood the value of going fast and turning left. NASCAR has been an American staple since its inception and for good reason, it’s awesome!

But why all the fuss? Why are these driver’s willing to put their lives on the line to walk a razor’s edge while going around a track at two hundred miles per hour?

Because that’s the damn point, isn’t it? Some folks just want to know what they’re made of. It’s easy enough to hold down a desk everyday and pack away a few extra bucks for a rainy day or the occasional family vacay, but putting your life on the line with a bunch of other crazies to see who has what it takes to win, no matter what, well that takes guts. Chutzpah. Cajones.

What it takes is Courage. And Passion.

People love NASCAR and tattoos for the same reason: They don’t make any sense and that doesn’t make it any less awesome. Tattoos hurt, cost money, take time to heal, and age as we do. You can’t even drive a NASCAR on the road and the average fan would be too blasted by the end of the race to drive home anyway. Why would anyone participate in such buffoonery anyway?

Because it’s fucking awesome, that’s why.

There’s and old saying that says ‘If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.’ Which sums it up quite nicely, really. So the next time someone with a shitty look on their face asks you why you got all of those tattoos, you just tell them what they already know: Because I fucking wanted them. ‘What are you going to do when you get old?’-probably die and shit myself. Or the popular ‘why would you do that to yourself, you’re such a pretty girl?’ -I’m still pretty, I’m just no longer attractive to assholes-mission accomplished!

It’s one of the tenets of the passionate, isn’t it? That it doesn’t matter what other people think! You’ll find that in the NASCAR fanbase, pro-wrestling fans, tattoo collectors, and well, in religion, won’t you?

Stay tuned for more in our Passion Series in a couple of days.

Because We Love It

As part of our Passion Series, we’re tackling the whole idea of motivation, choice, pursuit, sacrifice, and sustained effort (re: dedication). Where does passion for a thing come from? Many times it’s rooted in a childhood experience, something that creates a core memory for a developing mind that, if properly fostered, grows to become a life goal.

Art, music, sports, service. These are the four main areas where people find their passion. Art, music and sports speak for themselves. Service includes military service, teachers, law enforcement, medical professionals, chefs. So many of these people devote their entire lives to the service of others. The Greater Good. Hard work, over time, often thankless, even more times under-rewarded, yet they still do it. The world could not function without them.

Many times encounters with folks whose passion has faded or was misplaced is the cause of some of our most frustrating memories. The teacher who has forgotten it’s about the children; the power mad cop or doctor; Gordon Ramsey. When people pursue a service occupation for a paycheck instead of a deeply held personal belief system, it usually ends in strife. We’ve all had to deal with it.

Passion can degrade into obsession too. While a certain amount of obsessive behavior is necessary to accomplish any meaningfully difficult task, a passion that becomes an obsession loses it’s luster quickly. The love is gone. It’s represented in pathological behaviors like alcoholism and drug addiction, narcissism, or just plain old greed. We see this when a Scotch connoisseur starts settling for those little plastic airplane bottles of vodka; media personalities lose touch with their humanity (or reality altogether); or people who started on a path because of a genuine love for it allow it to devolve into an exercise of just getting MORE. Truly, obsession is the byproduct of a passion devoid of love. It becomes more about ownership than sharing. Only some of you reading this will get that last statement, and that’s okay.

So how to find your passion, to foster it for life and never fallout of love with your goal? Where does passion come from; how can someone figure out if what they think they want is REALLY what they want; how to pursue that desire in a healthy way; and even how to spread your own enthusiasm to others? These are the questions we wish to explore during our Passion Series and we invite you to join us on our journey.

MOLON LABE

Simply put, Molon Labe mean’s ‘come and get them’. These words were famously spoken by Spartan King Leonidas as so poetically depicted in the Frank Miller graphic novel and subsequent film ‘300’. He’d been told to lay down his weapons by the conqueror Xerxes. Even though Leonidas was faced with insurmountable odds, his response was one many Americans can still identify with. Leonidas and his Spartans have become the fashionable face of 2nd Amendment Rights and we couldn’t echo our sympathies more. To disarm a population is to undermine not only their freedom and choice, but their very capacity to defend themselves against an enemy, be that foreign or domestic. Leonidas understood that just wasn’t an option. I like to imagine we’d have gotten along well.

This Owl Doesn't Give a Shit About Your Feelings.

It also doesn’t seem to care for being fully in focus. Sorry about that. We’ll try to get a better picture of it once the client comes back from Knoxville for their next appointment.

‘Knoxville’, you say? People really come from that far away just to get a tattoo? Maaaan, people come from farther than THAT to get a great tattoo at a fair price by someone who time has tested as one of the best in the business. Will Wood has been tattooing in Middle Tennessee for 20 years. He’s won every award for tattoos they make, several times over, and he isn’t showing any signs of slowing down any time soon.

It’s about Passion. Will rides a Harley like he stole it, not because he doesn’t understand the laws of physics (he doesn’t though), or because he’s trying to prove anything to anyone, he does it because he’s passionate about it. Same reason he does anything really. The man is a living definition of ‘joie de vivre’. And he thinks you should be too. He shares his art with people who are passionate about it and want something to commemorate their own passions: their life’s work; their family; their values; their fears; their love.

Will Wood, indeed Lighthouse Tattoo, is not for everyone. There’s a limit to his and our accessibility. Mostly this is the desire to be the best, to have the best. Not everyone is going to have what it takes, we’ve grown to understand that and we are at peace with this fact. However, if you wish to have a long-lived relationship with one of the best tattoo artists in the world, we invite you to Lighthouse Tattoo, to meet with Will, and to decide for yourself if you have what it takes to not give a shit about anyone else’s feelings and to pursue greatness, just like Will and this owl here!

90's Wrestling Take Over!

Yeah, we’re silly.

There’s something to it though. A lot of parallels can be drawn from the world of sports entertainment, or rather, pro wrestling, to the tattoo world. The most obvious thing being that tons of wrestlers have lots of tattoos. From the Undertaker and Randy Orton to The Rock and Roman Reigns, bodyart quickly becomes a part of the wrestler’s persona. But there’s something more to the connection between tattooing and wrestling: Passion.

Wrestlers put their bodies on the line in order to entertain. Many aspiring professional wrestlers do this for little to no pay, often going into their own pockets in order to be able to pursue a dream. The path they follow is paved with blood, as is our own, and the ability to suffer with discipline is paramount. Valuable traits everyone should learn. No, they don’t do it because of the fame and fortune, because that’s never promised and only something a few rare souls will attain. They do it because they love it. Why? Who knows.

The same could be said of tattoos. Totally unnecessary; many people make fun of it, though rarely to your face unless they think they are in an environment where they can ‘get away’ with it; it involves sustained sacrifice and dedication to a future goal or vision; and it’s super badass. Hey, you either get it or you don’t. The initiated couldn’t care less, whether you’re a artist, a tattoo collector, a wrestler, or simply a fan. We like it, that’s all that matters.

And sometimes that’s the whole point. In a society so littered with trolls and trash talk, where social and mainstream media has clogged so many people’s minds with things that don’t matter to them that they’re all suffering from anxiety disorders, some of us have remembered what it means to not care what others think. And sometimes THAT’s the whole point. Be yourself. Like what you like. Live YOUR life. What others think doesn’t matter.

That’s Tattoo, and that’s pro wrestling.

So, for the next little bit, please enjoy our 90’s wrestling takeover and stay tuned to Lighthousetattoo.net for upcoming offers on prowrestling-themed tattoo specials and the further development of our Passion Series!

Geisha Tattoo

The Appeal of Geishas

Geisha, also known as geiko or geigi, are Japanese female entertainers and performing artists who are trained in traditional Japanese arts. They are known for their talents, such as singing, dancing, playing the samisen, flower arranging, performing the tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Geisha are also skilled conversationalists and hosts who are expected to create a stylish and cheerful atmosphere for their wealthy clientele. They are often seen wearing traditional kimonos and are known for their delicate manners and knowledge of current and past gossip.

Geisha in the movies are seductive assassins, capable of obscuring their true intentions long enough to strike the fatal blow; or beautiful spies with the ability to elicit state secrets from the most powerful monarchs and shogun. By all accounts, the geisha represent a pinnacle of feminine strength, guile, appeal, and poise. We can appreciate the single-minded approach to a craft. That, in and of itself, is something to be admired.

Grim Reaper Tattoo

Most folks remember the scene from that Final Destination movie, the one with the logging truck? Final Destination being that series of movies where people manage to ‘cheat’ death somehow, then Death comes for each of them in turn. This is perhaps one of the dumbest premises for any movie, ever.

We’re all going to die.

The question is what are you going to do in the meantime? So many of us are taking our lives for granted by chasing leisure as opposed to striving to produce something meaningful or working for the greater good. Instead of being thankful for bodies and minds that function properly, far too many of us take the absence of physical or mental impairment for granted by being lazy or self medicating with illicit substances to deal with stress.

But you’re still going to die.

So knuckle up buttercup. Life’s not gonna stop coming at you, until it does, so it’s time to get to work. Dig deep. Find something meaningful in your life worth working for and go about the business of obtaining any goals you’ve set for yourself. There’s an old saying that goes ’If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.’ Well, that simply means is that if you’re not REALLY living, you’re wasting your time and everyone else’s.

And you’re probably screwing up traffic. Honestly, learn to merge people…but I digress.

Tattoos aren’t just some self indulgent, aggrandizing, popular wave. The only thing that keeps them from being cliche is that they hurt, every time. It takes a certain degree of discipline to face those needles. A certain amount of trust and time spent with another human being to get a tattoo that you’ll love for the rest of your life. There’s something about getting a new tattoo that screams ‘I’m alive’ and in a time where so much is uncertain we think it’s important that people are still able to express themselves in their own skin.

So what are you waiting for? Live a little.

Harry Potter Fan Appreciation Day!!!

Our annual Harry Potter fan appreciation day/party is right around the corner! Our artists have put together some beautiful flash for all of you to enjoy on this magical day The skin wizards will be hard to work between the hours of 12:00pm to 5:00pm-ish and the party festivities will begin at 7:00pm We can’t wait to celebrate with all of you! See ya August 3rd!! (stay tuned for more updates!!

Thestral

Will and his family all love the Harry Potter series of books and movies, so whenever someone approaches him for Wizarding World-themed work he gets this small-child-on-Christmas-morning look of excitement in his eyes and you can see the wheels start turning. Rachel certainly appreciates his enthusiasm, as when she arrived for her consultation, Will was dressed in full Harry Potter regalia, and a love affair of tattoo and literature was born.

This Thestral is an excellent starting point for a non-humanoid Harry Potter sleeve, highlighting the symbolism and animals more than the characters themselves. Bold, high contrast black and grey images will be combined with powerful, flowing colors in the finished work, creating a rush of energy and excitement packed with detail. Engaging and powerful artwork, striking from a distance, but with a level of tight detail that holds up under close scrutiny are hallmarks of the artwork of Will Wood.

Lighthouse Tattoo is located at 328 N. Cumberland st, a block off the Lebanon, TN square. Open seven days a week, our number is 615 784-4500 and our email address is info@lighthousetattoo.net. In-person inquiries about tattoo work is preferred, with calls and emails being returned within 48 hours. We hope to see you soon!

Professor Minerva Mcgonagall

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: If you don’t like Harry Potter, we can’t be friends! This Professor Minerva Mcgonagall was started a few months ago and only finished recently due to it’s rather sensitive location (the side of the knee). Still, she looks absolutely fantastic! This particular award-winning piece is special for another reason: It’s on Will’s daughter Christa!

You're a Wizard!

This August 3rd, in observation of the birthday of Harry Potter, we will be hosting a fan appreciation day. Stay logged in to lighthousetattoo.net and we will be posting photos of the trophies soon! We will be tattooing until about 7pm, party starts after that. Don’t be late!

Harry Potter Portrait Tattoo

Kaitlyn got this young Harry Potter portrait at our HP Fan Appreciation Day/ Anniversary party. She subsequently won best portrait in the tattoo contest later that day! Thanks Kaitlyn (sorry if I’m spelling your name wrong) for sitting so well and being a great canvas!

Horror Sleeve Tattoo

Dustin loves horror movies. It’s a fondness he shares with his wife and something that brings them closer together. The first subject of this sleeve is Freddy Kreuger and he wasn’t disappointed! Will Wood has developed a reputation for being one of the very best realism artists in the state/region and he has certainly earned it with this piece! With plans to add Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, you’ll want to stay logged in to lighthousetattoo.net for updates on this amazing work of art!