Molon Labe Tattoo

‘Come and get them!’

This awesome image of King Leonidas from the movie 300 conveys something many of us have come to feel, certainly as of late. It tells a tale of men, using reason and courage, fighting for what they knew to be right. Willing to die if need be, willing to kill if forced to. Turn on the news and you see that people the world over share the same sentiment and express it in different, sometimes unhealthy ways. Still, it’s obvious the idea of MOLON LABE is alive and well in the hearts of men these days. Let us use our powers of reason to make sure we’re fighting the good fight, just like King Leonidas here.

Straight and Arrow

Arrows are all about moving forward and staying true. Tattoos of them have become popular for that very reason. Let’s face it, we all know that person in our lives that can’t just MOVE ON. The first step in triumphing over trauma is to get through it and move forward. So something terrible happened to you, we get it, life is hard. The more you hang on to that hurt though, the more it’s destined to hurt you. Learn. Grow. Live. Find a direction and move toward it. Get some distance on the past. So much to be learned from the image of the arrow.

Matt Steele is young but he’s no stranger to pain. A sentiment he shares with so many of his clients who are often marginalized because of their youth. It’s hard enough when you’re hurt, harder still when it seems like the whole world refuses to acknowledge it. Please know that even in your darkest hour, so many people in the world empathize with your pain, even if you don’t have access to them or it doesn’t feel like it. Move forward, live on. Life has so much more to offer than what the pain can take away.

Call of Cthulhu

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (US: /ˈlʌvkræft/; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. Lovecraft is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.[n 1]

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England. After his father's institutionalization in 1893, he lived affluently until his family's wealth dissipated after the death of his grandfather. Lovecraft then lived with his mother, in reduced financial security, until her institutionalization in 1919. He began to write essays for the United Amateur Press Association and, in 1913, Lovecraft wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction. He became active in the speculative fiction community and was published in several pulp magazines. Lovecraft moved to New York, marrying Sonia Greene in 1924, and later became the center of a wider group of authors known as the "Lovecraft Circle". They introduced him to Weird Tales, which would become his most prominent publisher. Lovecraft's time in New York took a toll on his mental state and financial conditions. He returned to Providence in 1926 and produced some of his most popular works, including "The Call of Cthulhu", At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time. He would remain active as a writer until his death from intestinal cancer at the age of 46.- Wikipedia.

Cthulhu is one of the ancient dark gods from the fabled horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Along with Dagon and stories like The Unnameable the image stirs visions of creatures constantly writhing somewhere in the ocean’s depths, as if struggling to maintain its current form. His tales are patient in their delivery, building suspense and allowing the reader to scare themselves, not unlike the style of today’s horror master Stephen King. Indeed, the influence of Lovecraft is indelibly marked in the work of many modern day horror writers. This particular visage is depicted in a nautical-themed sleeve containing several cover-ups. Dark and foreboding, it’s immediate impact can be felt even through the screen. Imagine it in person.

Lighthouse Tattoo is open seven days per week from noon to 10pm. Schedule an appointment by visiting the shop at 328 N. Cumberland St in Lebanon, TN, just a block off the Lebanon town square; calling us during business hours at 615 784-4500 (or leave us a message outside of business hours and we will call you back, please include your phone number in your message); fill out our ‘Set and Appointment’ from located one this website; or messaging us via Facebook. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Walk-ins Welcome! (Part 2)

Lighthouse Tattoo has heard your request to increase our walk-in tattoo availability and we have taken great pains to be able to serve you further! That being said, our experience tells us that some people will take the offer of a small, quick tattoo to mean that they can start their new sleeve or backpiece today. We call those people very bad names. Want to avoid being called a dirty word? Follow these easy instructions/criteria for your next walk-in:

  1. Walk-ins aren’t necessarily Right-Nows. A Walk-In is a tattoo that can be done sometime that day, not immediately. If you want to get a tattoo that day, please be patient and we’ll do our very best to take care of you. That being said…

  2. Walk-Ins are simple. Walk-In tattoos by their very nature cannot take up too much time. We’d recommend keeping all Walk-In business to tattoos that will take two hours or less. If you’re not sure how long your tattoo will take, we’ll tell you!

  3. Be Nice. It’s a mantra we have here at Lighthouse Tattoo, if you want something, be nice. If you are not nice, you can count on us not being very nice either. You may get invited to leave, be banned from the shop, or catch a vicious ass whooping if you need one. Or you could just Be Nice and we’ll do our very best to take care of you. It’s certainly more likely to get you what you want than being an asshole.

  4. Please do not call ahead. This may seem weird to some folks, but it is really a huge hassle and a waste of time for everyone. If you’re considering getting a Walk-In tattoo, just walk in. That’s the point. If you call and ask if we have time to do a Walk-In we will tell you yes no matter what. So just come on down!

With three new artists dedicated to this service, we hope to be able to fulfill your every Walk-In need!

Walkens Welcome!

It’s Christopher Walken, get it?

At Lighthouse Tattoo we pride ourselves on our customer service. Most of the time, we succeed in meeting the challenges presented to us by our clientele. We have two areas where we have failed to meet that challenge in the past though, and in 2022, we have made it our goal to improve our services further, in order to better serve you!

What are those to areas of insufficiency, you ask? The first is the most difficult challenge and one we will be seeking to rectify in the coming months; the second, and the reason for this post, is something we believe we have managed to solve already: Our availability to accept walk-in clients.

Anyone who’s been to Lighthouse Tattoo with any regularity, or spent any amount of time on this website should know the battle we’ve fought with people who call in a request for a walk-in tattoo. It just doesn’t work that way and so many people are ignorant to that fact that it has presented problems in the past. You see, our artists are good at what they do, as such, their schedules tend to be booked pretty solid, so our ability to serve walk-in clients has been extremely limited, leading to frustration from prospective clients and sometimes even negative reviews from the especially Karen-y types that can malign any business. Comma splices aside, we have added some new faces to the lineup in hopes of being able to deliver walk-in tattoo availability 7 days per week!

Crystal has been doing small tattoos and walk-ins on the weekends for about a year now. She is being joined by our newest apprentice, Hannah, and another artist by the name of Brady, who comes to Lighthouse Tattoo with 3 years of experience and an eagerness to learn. With the upcoming addition of two new apprentices, we believe we will be able to handle walk-in business seven days per week throughout the busy tax refund season rush and beyond!

Our first problem? That has to do with people throwing temper tantrums over losing their deposits after violating our deposit agreement. We will be handling that issue shortly, stay tuned to our Knucklehead of the Month section to see how!

We’d also like to take this time to thank all of those reasonable souls who wanted to get a tattoo as a walk-in, but when they couldn’t, they just scheduled an appointment like a normal person instead of behaving like a poorly trained child. Thank you!

Valentine's Day Closings

From February 14th (Valentine’s Day), through the 16th, Lighthouse Tattoo will be closed to finish our most recent renovations! Those of you who have visited the shop have seen the work we have been doing and these three days will be used to tie things up nicely! We will be re-opening for normal business hours at noon on February 17th so everyone can see the work we’ve had done! Thank you for your patience as we grow our shop to better serve our loyal clientele!

New Party Plans

For those of you who have been able to enjoy one of the parties held here at Lighthouse Tattoo we have good news, the next party is in the queue! It seems like the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has managed to split the uprights, seeing an uptick in infection rates weeks after our Ugly Christmas Sweater party and it looks like it will crest and subside significantly before our next party, which is something we can all be very glad for. As we reach the sort of equilibrium between vaccination and natural immunity that will afford us a resistance to Covid that will allow a bit of the last two years’ hysteria to fade, we will celebrate by getting our St. Patrick’s Day freak on!

On Saturday, March 19th, Lighthouse Tattoo will be hosting our famous St. Patrick’s Day party. Free Food and booze, great people, great music, all add up to a great time! We will be making further announcements in the future, we just wanted to make sure everyone knows what day to mark off their schedule now that it seems that we can breathe a little easier with Covid on the downside of things.

Get Ready for Tax Refund Season!

Well, it’s almost here. As people get ready for their Super Bowl parties, so many more of them will begin looking forward to receiving a refund from the IRS. It’s expected to be a bit delayed this year, but if you intend to use that money to get tattooed, we would strongly encourage you to go ahead and set an appointment now! Every year we run into the same problem: people wait until that have the cash in hand; then try to get a sleeve started as a walk-in (okay, it may not be that drastic all the time, but it has happened). An $80 or $100 deposit will get time reserved with the artist of your choosing (except Will Wood, he has limited his availability to existing clients and special projects only). So don’t wait! Schedule you appointment now!

Dead Guy

Spencer’s sister told him about Lighthouse Tattoo. So for his very first tattoo, he flew all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada to get two sessions from Will in the same week! Since the Sleeve isn’t finished, we only managed to snag a couple of shots and this is the best one we took of this dead guy piece, we won’t try to spell that old pharaoh’s name here, but you know it, that Egyptian dude. Spencer has already scheduled a follow-up appointment to get more work done in June and we’re excited to be able to show you more of this amazing piece then!

Back in the Saddle After the Holidays

Well, after everyone has has their fill of Christmas dinners and gotten rid of holiday travel jet lag, quarantined or recovered from Covid, we are finally all back to work for the first time since before Christmas! It took a bit of doing and we certainly appreciate your patience, but we’re back and ready to go!

So here’s the skinny on how things look as of right now:

Deuce is currently booking about a month out. He has a little bit of time here and there, but his weekends (as usual) book first, so hit us up if you want to get tattooed before the busy tax refund season rush.

Matt is booking a couple of weeks out, with little bits of time here and there for small stuff.

Dave has some time available and is returning to work after an extended hiatus

Crystal is also returning to work this weekend, she has plenty of time available for walk-ins and small stuff. Crystal doesn’t tackle the bigger stuff or do sessions, she’s strictly doing walk-ins and small stuff as we move to make our walk-in business more convenient.

Hannah is our newest addition and will be tattooing walk-ins during the week. This means that we will have walk-in artists seven days per week, but please keep in mind that they have limited experience and will only be doing small pieces. We will finally be able to fit in that spur-of-the-moment tattoo urge we’re always hearing about!

We are adding two additional piercers to make sure if someone’s out we can still serve you as well as a newly created position, a Client Manager, whose job is to tend to your every need.

Will, you ask? Will is currently only scheduling appointments for returning clients, his schedule has gotten so full managing it has become a full-time job and he needs to finish some of the large pieces he is working on in order to be able schedule any new clients during a reasonable time-frame. We will post on this website once he is booking new clientele. We encourage interested parties to submit an appointment application under the ‘set an appointment’ tab, as Will does take a look at them and gives priority to clients based on the quality of their ideas.

We hope that we can continue to grow and serve even more of you this coming year as we intensify our push to make getting a great tattoo more fun and convenient for everyone. We hope to hear from you real soon!

Gene Wilder Willy Wonka Portrait

This years-old hairy portrait of Willy Wonka brings to mind arguments of ‘who did it better?’ Johnny Depp is truly a fantastic actor, but he’ll never really be able to compare to the original: The late, great Mr. Gene Wilder. Wilder’s take on the candy purveyor embodied his lightly menacing quirkiness. In fact, it’s his bold portrayal that made the role for Johnny Depp to step into even possible. The lighting isn’t great in this photo, but we’ll take the time to point out the level of detail in the delicate smile Wilder offers in this photo, as well as the depth and tangibility of the bow tie. Enjoy!

Pennywise the Dancing Clown!

Late last year our resident realism artist, Will Wood made an offer to do a portrait of Pennywise at a significant discount. Here is the result of that session! The interesting thing is, Will made the offer as sort of a first-come, first-served deal, but he got so much interest in it he felt he couldn’t turn so many people down and just take a single winner. Besides, the whole reason Will wanted to do the piece was because he loves horror movies and he thought it was cool.

So here’s what happened: We asked everyone who was interested to get on this website and fill out an application to set an appointment. On that application it asks what your budget is. Will set a price that seemed reasonable and like a good deal, and anyone who listed an amount over that number would get the tattoo for the price Will picked. That price? $400. A phenomenal deal by any stretch of the imagination!

This Pennywise is one of the two pieces Will has done so far, completed in a single session over about 7 hours. The lesson here is to follow Lighthouse Tattoo on Instagram and Facebook, as well as logging in to this website weekly in order to get wind of some of the amazing deals we offer from time to time! We will have more to offer in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

A Word On Bad Decisions and Tattoo Removal

Recently Pete Davidson announced his intention to have all of his tattoo removed. If you’re not familiar with Pete Davidson, he has a ton of tattoos, from the looks of it, most of them bad. Poor decision making coupled with poor execution has resulted in Pete deciding that he’d be better off without all those tattoos. Every. Single. One.

He says it’s because he wants to pursue a serious acting career, that the tattoos will keep him from getting good roles. While this is definitely possible, it hasn’t stopped plenty of other A-list actors from getting jobs, from Johnny Depp to Angelina Jolie to people like the Rock and Danny Trejo, whose tattoos have become an important part of their celebrity. Truth is, people like Pete want to get their tattoos removed because they made poor decisions and got bad work. That’s the problem, not ‘being tattooed’, but ‘being tattooed badly’.

We get hammered online for turning people away for various reasons. Ultimately it amounts to the fact that people don’t like being told ‘no’ and they especially hate it coming from someone in a service industry. The benefit of coming to a place like Lighthouse Tattoo is you’re less likely to end up like poor Pete here. If something doesn’t feel right about what you’re asking for or why you’re asking for it, we tend to strongly discourage moving forward with the idea. If we both decide to proceed, you can bet your sweet aunt Sally that your tattoo will be done at a high level and it won’t be something you want to have removed later.

Judging from his role on SNL and King of Staten Island, young Pete Davidson has a bright career ahead of himself. But if he doesn’t achieve what he wants to in life, it won’t be the tattoos that stop him, it will be his own choices.

If you don’t want to regret your tattoos in the future, make good choices and go to the best artist you can find. Simple as that.

When You Decide to Put Yourself First for a Change

Babies are selfish. They cry any time they don’t get what they want. It’s something we start training out of them almost immediately, ‘don’t be a crybaby’ is an admonishment we’ve all heard. Later we learn patience, then we learn the benefits of self-sacrifice, like once we establish lasting friendships, find lovers, or have children. We learn that doing something for others is worthwhile and feels good. Eventually we learn that helping others is one of the most rewarding things we can do.

. The world can seem like a very selfish place if all you ever do is take care of everyone else. It can grate on you and erode the patience you’ve honorably cultivated. Sometimes you just have to pour something back into that well you’ve been drawing from for everyone else if you want to keep being able to do just that. So we also come to understand that sometimes you have to do something for yourself.

We know you can’t pamper yourself all the time. You have responsibilities you have to attend to. We simply ask that in those times you seek to do something nice for yourself, to reward yourself for all your hard work, to pour back into that well, that you rely on Lighthouse Tattoo to take care of you.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home is breaking box-office records and for good reason, it gives the fans what they want! This bright, beautiful Spider-Man is what Matt wanted and he got it! several of the artists at Lighthouse Tattoo are huge comic book fans, so if it’s comic-based work you’re interested in, swing on by Lighthouse Tattoo and get what you really want from the best artists suited for the job!

Lighthouse Tattoo Year-End Review!

Here’s some of the best tattoo art Lighthouse Tattoo has had to offer in the last year. If you don’t see your tattoo here, you should probably swing by the shop so we can get a good photo of it! We’d also like to take this time to sincerely thank everyone who has supported us during this trying time. Battling an existential threat like COVID-19 and the ineptitude of government we have not only managed to survive, but to thrive and that’s all because of our clients, many of which we consider family. Thank you, we love you, and here’s to next year!

Here’s just a few of our favorite tattoos by Will over the last year. What a year it’s been. This blogger thinks I speak for everyone when I say 2021 can go fuck itself. Here’s to a better 2022!

Lion of Judah

This Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of our our Lord and Savior, please take the time to remember those less fortunate than yourself and give to a charity of your choosing, or possibly donate your time if you can. Thank you and Merry Christmas from Lighthouse Tattoo!

We Want to be the Best Tattoo Shop in the World

At Lighthouse Tattoo we want to be the best. We want that for a lot of reasons: We’ll make consistently more money and live better lives because of that; we’ll be able to provide education and influence the greater industry and clientele for (hopefully) generations to come; but most importantly, if we are the best, then we’ll be able to give YOU the best. The best service and experience at the best prices, resulting in the best tattoo you could ask for. That’s our dream.

We have some ingredients for that. We have an accomplished master tattooer in Will Wood, who believes that people are more important than money, to train us. We have an ever-evolving 4000 square-foot facility in an easily accessible location minutes from one of the fastest growing cities in the country, Nashville. We have an experienced team of veteran tattoo artists and piercers to help guide a small group of talented young artists on their path to greatness.

But we can’t accomplish anything without you.

Without clients who are willing to trust their artist’s expertise and skills, to challenge us, and build lasting relationships that lead to wonderful bodies of work (pun totally intended) we can’t accomplish our goals and we can’t grow to give you what you deserve: The very best.

So, this Christmas season; this tax refund season; or just the next time you think about getting that new tattoo, please think about giving Lighthouse Tattoo a try.