Vet Legacy Shatters Barriers

Camera Eye Turns Toward Belfast's Kids
By Martin Russell
Irish American Post Book Editor

Colorado-based photographer Tom Kumpf remains a creative, idealist visionary, not despite of but exactly because of his Vietnam War days. He uses a camera to capture the fragments of emotion stirred by war and turmoil. Kumpf's keen eye emphasizes a demonstrable understanding of the value he places on human beings. The creative, as well as the personal, side of Kumpf stand out in his "Children of Belfast: Reclaiming Their Place Among the Stones" photo exhibit which opened in January at the Icebox Gallery in Minneapolis.

The show runs through Feb. 24. A book by the same name, which includes his essays and stories about Belfast in the LATE-1990s, waspublished in 2000 by Devenish Press ($19.95, softbound). Depending onhow the viewer interprets the images, the photos can be poignant, raw or nerve-shaking. And always, always, they are exquisitely crafted.It's the eyes, mainly, that stare out from the faces that draw you in, deeper than you ever believed possible. 

"Belfast is beautiful but bad, and its children are veterans well before they're old enough to be soldiers," Kumpf wrote in one essay accompanying the book. Yet the photographer is not a pessimist, "There's is anger here, and certainly pain," he continued. "More than that, however, there is a resilience, a flexibility and strength that seems to transcend whatever hardships the children might otherwise be suffering," he recalled, saying that in any discussion about The Troubles, the children's eyes clouded over "with the same distancing look I've seen so many other times in veterans of wars such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and numerous other conflicts."

Yet with the youngsters, as soon as the conversation switches to another, less cruel, topic, the "cloud evaporates andthey go back to being children," he said.

"I came back really cynical from Vietnam," Kumpf recalled, "so I started looking for the truth." This journey has taken him to war-torn countries in various parts of the world, including Somalia for a German news agency in 1995. "I have always had an interest in conflict," he admitted. His veteran's experiences also enabled him to go to the former Soviet Union where he helped counsel Russian soldiers returning from the horrors of the Afghanistan war. "We were able to relate because of our similar experience in equally unpopular wars," he said.

His Vietnam tour also helped break down barriers when he walked with his Nikon cameras through the Falls and Shankill neighborhoods in Belfast, earning the trust of both IRA and UVF paramilitaries. "They looked at me as a fellow vet who had given his all for his country, only to have his countrymen turn their backs."

He said this factor seemed to affect the loyalist side more than the republicans. "The IRA were trained better. Before they sent you into action, they'd ask repeatedly if you had a clear conscience about what you were about to do. They didn't have the guilt after they returned from an action or prison. 

"The Protestants, on the other hand, were often just kids sent out with the attitude of ACWD, 'any Catholic will do.' They had to prove their value to the cause. Often they'd do the deed drunk and then becaught and imprisoned. Later, they realized what they'd done and were left with psychological problems," he conjectured. 

Kumpf went on to say how tightly contained the Northern Ireland conflict had been, with lower-class Catholics battling an equal number of poor Protestants in an emotional and spiritual turf war contained in a small area. "When you talk with them, both sides were living in much the same situation and had the same challenges," he pointed out. 

But the purpose behind Kumpf's Belfast book was to depict how children functioned in such a troubled society. "I started having problems in the 1980s that were related to Vietnam and these affected my own children," he said. Kumpf underwent therapy for post traumatic stress disorder and then went on to help other troubled Vietnam vets, many of whom were in prison.

"This process led me to wonder how much of this was transgenerational, if youngsters in Northern Ireland were hit the same way my kids had been" he added. He talked with little girls who had seen their fathers murdered. "When they described the terror and what happened in front of them, they would cry. But afterwards, they could still run outside and play," he marveled. Teens, on the other hand, often repressed what they had witnessed, he said. 

Kumpf indicated he never felt threatened during his visits to the North, although he was almost hit by a British Army rubber bulletfired during a demonstration on Belfast's Ormeau Road. "I felt it whizzing past my head," he said. "I wonder where I'd be now if it had hit me?"

Kumpf shot almost 600 rolls of black and white film, narrowing down thousands of images to the 58 that supported his book's essays. A full-blown gallery exhibit incorporates 42 shots, although the Icebox Gallery only displays 35 because of space restrictions. The exhibit has already been shown in Colorado and other states where he has had book signings and presented lectures. A small exhibit of his pictures WAS also well-received during a showing last year at a Shankill Road community center. In addition, the photos are on permanent display in Garrett McCarthy's Old Louisville Inn, an Irish pub at 740 Front St., Louisville, Colo. Now age 53, Kumpf was born in Pittsburgh where his dad Herbert was a butcher. His mom's great-grandfather, John Quinn and his wife Marcella, were from the poet-rich Kilfenora, a village in Co. Clare. His mother, also named Marcella, died in 1988, but "the day before I left for Ireland in 1997, I found my baby book. It included all the genealogy," Kumpf said, numbering Quinns, Kenneys, Powers and Carneys among his Irish relations. He currently lives in Lafayette, a small Colorado town near Boulder. Kumpf is a Navy veteran who spent 18 months in Vietnam as a damge controlman on a fleet oiler, as well as spending time in-country. It was there that he purchased his first cameras. When he returned from Vietnam in January of 1970, he moved to Missoula, Mont., finishing 25 years of employment there as line supervisor in a Louisiana-Pacific Corp. particle board plant. He also ran a Montana guide service on the side from 1970 to 1976, regularly visiting Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities to drum up sporting clients. However, a tumor in his left knee caused him to drop out of the guide business and he took up karate to strengthen his legs. "I discovered I really like to fight," he chuckled, a fact which led him to becoming a serious martial artist . "I retired from the competitive arena when I was 45."

Kumpf kept working at the factory until his two daughters were finished with school. Their father's concern for others must have rubbed off on them, helping them choose careers servicing the needs of people needing help. Erin, 27, covers the Pacific Northwest as a regional representative for Amnesty International and Lisa, 32, is a schoolteacher in Texas.

With his daughters finally out on their own, Kumpf went into the camera world fulltime and taught photography for the University of Montana. He moved to Boulder, Colo., in 1996 and continued shooting and teaching htere. Jan Bachman of Devenish Publishing took his photo course and asked to see his Ireland manuscript. She was interested enough in the package to offer him a contract. Kumpf shared artistic control of the book, using a New Mexico designer David Skolkin to assemble the publication. Skolkin's graphic ideas for the Belfast book just earned Devenish a first place award in the 2000-2001 Western U.S. Book Design and Production Competition. 

The draw of Ireland remains irresistible for Kumpf. He recently rented a house near his family's ancestral village — just to the north of Ennis — and was returning this month to work through June on anotherphoto book. The latest volume will focus on stone circles and other ancient sites in Ireland and how they've affected Irish identity through the ages. Of course, there will be another run or two to Belfast to visit friends...because that city is part of him now, as well.
 
 

"Children of Belfast: Reclaiming Their Place Among the Stones," a selection photos of youngsters in the Northern Ireland capital, is on exhibit through Feb. 24 at the Icebox Gallery, 2401 Central Ave. NE, Minneapolis. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday and until 9 p.m., Thursday. For more information, contact gallery manager Howard Christopherson, 612-788-1790. The show is sponsored in part by Kieran's Pub in Minneapolis.