Itsyville, a fairytale chainsaw town

When Steve Blanchard began to learn the craft of carving with chainsaw, his first works were miniature trees. As other colleagues were doing the same, he felt the need to do something else. When he told his mentor that he wanted to add branches to the trees, he replied that this was impossible. But for Steve, the idea that something was impossible made him even more ambitious. While his colleagues were making squirrels, he put branches on the tree. He kept adding bears, squirrels, Indians, dwarves, forest spirits until, 15 years later, the tree with added branches grew into beautiful fairytale-like houses. And not long after, the cottages formed the little town of childhood dreams - Itsyville.

Passion discovered after a failure

Steve was not always aware of these extraordinary skills. In fact, before he got around to starting to build the town, he had a challenging journey. His rebellious nature kept him away from what turned out to be his calling since his teenage years. He served in the navy, worked in construction and in various branches of industry. He also ended up with 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 putting on 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 a chainsaw carving class. Steve says he's never felt like he fit in anywhere as perfectly as he did then.

Steve Blanchard carves some of the most impressive wooden houses. The way he manages to reproduce fairytale cottages drawn in childhood books from 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 fairy-tale world where you want to enter, even if only for a short walk.

Blanchard formed a team of woodcarvers called Saw Dogs. They have a TV show where, using chainsaws, they solve the most complicated projects. Each episode is a new challenge as the team faces deadlines, tight budgets or occasional disasters.