Synergy, (as defined by Wikipedia) in general, may be defined as two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently.
Christian and Mary Buckingham first opened the doors to The Underground Tattoo in April of 2004 in a small corner office of the Rogers Building in Idaho Falls. They were both about a year out of their apprenticeships from Las Vegas, and came to Idaho Falls to be close to their families. After about 6 months, they had outgrown their shop, and moved a few blocks over to where we are located today. With the help of Aramis and several apprentices, the shop was quickly transformed. They strove to have the best shop in the area. Things went well, and after a year, Aramis wanted to open his own shop.
Christian and Aramis parted ways, and the shop took a new life again, with massive remodeling, a new paint job, and the graduation of Arnie Wells as a tattoo artist.
In June of 2006, the name of The Underground changed to the name of Synergy and the way we do business. Christian and Mary decided to do away with flash (the pictures that you choose tattoo designs from found on the walls or books of older tattoo shops) and decided to go the route of custom tattoos. Synergy, as defined above, is two agents working together to do something bigger and better. The two agents are as simple as artist and client. We had been doing custom artwork for quite a while, making changes to pictures or drawing up whole new pieces for our customers, and found that the flash was more an obstacle when it came to doing larger scale projects. Flash is hard to get to flow and move with the body than a piece specifically designed to fit the body of the client. This also marked the graduation of Troll as a tattoo artist.
In 2008, Synergy attempted to open a second shop, but due to lack of artists, the Ammon location closed after 6 months and we all reconsolidated back to the original shop on Park Ave. Shortly afterwards, BJ and Scott graduated as a tattoo artists. During that summer, we also jump started a short lived volunteer group called IF Town as a way to help support the community and the smaller mom and pop shops that make up our city. Since that time, we have still strived to set the standard of tattooing in the area.
In 2009, after much discussion, Christian and Mary decided that it was time to start looking at another area to live. The biggest debate was what to do with the business, and all the friends that they had made. They didn’t want to cut all ties to the area, so as a solution, Christian and Mary sold the business to the artists of the shop, with the agreement that the name that they had established stays as strong if not stronger than it was when they moved.
Now, a year later, as a whole, the artists are pushing themselves to a new level every day: studying the techniques of other artists, pushing for sterilization practices, and the best art that they can. We also added Jake to the list of artists at Synergy. Everyone who has ever been employed by Synergy, or been tattooed by one of our artists has a piece of that heritage. That tattoo that you may not be there without our artists, and our artists would still be working a desk job somewhere without your patronage. Thus, the name Synergy continues its cycle.
