Meet our team: Liz Duck-Chong
As part of a new series, we’re talking to the Among The Trees staff about what they do and why they do it. We’ve learned over the years that working with reclaimed materials is a bit of an unusual calling, and attracts all sorts of interesting people.
This time we’re talking with Liz Duck-Chong, who manages finance manager, course facilitator, and lead of custom customer woodwork hats. In her spare time, Liz is learning to build guitars from recycled Australian timbers, some of which are visible in our workshop in store.
Liz visiting the site of the windfallen Big Tree in south Tasmania.
Tell us a bit about what you do at Among The Trees?
I juggle a few roles across the business, but day to day I work in the machining department and shop, I teach a couple of our courses, and handle any of the custom bespoke work our customers want. I also get a real kick out of illustrating our course handbooks! (See some of the illustrations here)
What gets you out of bed and going to work in the morning?
I mean, the love of the wood is absolutely part of it: I still sometimes pinch myself that I get to spend my days working with one of the most beautiful materials and resources on the planet! But more than that, I get to help other people to understand it, figure out how it might play a part in their life, home, or project, and to find uses for the pieces that may have otherwise wound up being thrown out.
I started in this area because I was learning how to do woodwork and the idea of buying virgin timber from somewhere like Bunnings seemed horrifying, especially when I was walking past piles of timber outside people’s houses during council clean ups or slated for the tip. Sometimes this timber takes a bit of extra love or energy to get into a state where it’s ready for fine joinery or something, but that time is worth it, and I also feel more connected with every item I make because that little extra effort is visible in that history.
What’s your favourite thing about recycled and/or reclaimed timber?
If I had to narrow it down, it would be two things: the quality and the goodness for the planet. I’ve worked with all kinds of timber, and I still feel like a kid in a lolly shop when I’m first dressing a new piece of Aussie hardwood or a beautiful slab of something a bit more unusual like Southern silky oak (Grevillea robusta) or Australian red cedar (Toona ciliata) – using reclaimed timber gives us access to wood that was milled out of forests that just don’t exist anymore. The quality of it is unreal, and it shows in the finished objects.
The second part is obviously the goodness for the planet. I’ve always been a greenie (I grew up singing Put On Your Green Shoes, so who can blame me!), but working with recycled materials of any kind feels like a no-brainer. There’s so much waste in the world, the idea of cutting down on some of that and then also getting a beautiful material out of it feels like having our cake and eating it too.
Among The Trees is built around sustainability, but what do you personally find valuable about a sustainable outlook?
At its core, I feel like this planet is valuable and we’re doing a pretty rough job of looking after it in the global north. The legacies of colonialism and extractive capitalism are still being written in many parts of this industry, with old growth native forest logging bans and a better understanding of forest ecosystems making a difference, but still resulting in just too much of our planet’s forests being cut down for profit. Thinking sustainably allows me to imagine a future in which the health of our ecosystems and animals are prioritised, and the wisdom of First Nations people across the globe underpins how we think about resources and the natural world. Seeing us do this work makes me believe that more can be done, and that there’s hope in doing it.
