Itsyville, a fairytale chainsaw town

When Steve Blanchard began to learn the craft of carving with chainsawHis first works were miniature trees. As other colleagues were doing the same, he felt the need to do something different. When he told his mentor that he wanted to add branches to the trees, his mentor told him that it was impossible. But for Steve, the idea that something was impossible made him even more ambitious. While his coworkers were making squirrels, he put branches on the tree. He continued to add bears, squirrels, Indians, Indians, dwarves, woodland spirits until, 15 years later, he had added branches to the tree and ended up with beautiful little houses that looked like something out of a fairy tale. And not much later, the cottages formed the little town of childhood dreams - Itsyville.

Passion discovered after failure

Steve was not always aware of these extraordinary abilities. In fact, before he got to start building the little town, he had a challenging journey. His rebellious nature kept him away from what turned out to be his calling from his early teens. He served in the Navy, worked in construction and various branches of industry. He even ended up in a sound company that brought him closer to the artistic world. He started his own company, trying to launch local talent, but found himself broke overnight after organizing a big concert.

With $400 in his pocket, he moved to the small mountain town of Three Rivers in the Sierra. After a few odd jobs, he's taking the chainsaw carving class. Steve says he never felt he fit in anywhere as perfectly as he did then.

Steve Blanchard carves some of the most impressive little houses out of wood. The way he manages to replicate fairytale cottages drawn in childhood books in wood is absolutely amazing. With these inspired works he takes the viewer into a fairytale world, where the curved edges of windows and doors are commonplace and there is no glass or steel, only wood. Everything is interwoven with rustic motifs, wild animals, dwarves and Indians. It's a fairytale world you want to enter, if only for a short stroll.

Blanchard formed a team of wood carvers called Saw Dogs. They have a TV show where they use chainsaws to solve the most complicated projects. Each episode is a new endeavor as the team faces deadlines, tight budgets or the occasional disaster.