Michael Ballenger holds some of his flameworking creations. Gaffney native Michael Ballenger had no training in developing his skill of flameworking, a craft he has been practicing for eight years.

He says his friends did it as a hobby and got him interested as well. Bob Snodgrass has been spreading the trend through the country for years. It was his apprentices that taught Ballenger about flameworking.

"The more I work at it, the easier it's gotten for me," he said.

Flameworking is a type of glassblowing where tubes of glass are heated and shaped. Ballenger works with Borsilicate glass tubes, heating small sections of them one at a time. The glass gathers on itself and is pulled and manipulated by the flameworker using gravity and heat at different angles.

"It's like moving water in a frame and you can freeze it where you want it," he said.

Ballenger says that flameworking started out as a hobby and now he is trying to make a living doing it. "I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid," he said. "The possibilities are endless in the art you can make."

Ballenger makes perfume bottles, rings and sculptures. Paperweights are his favorite things to create. He says he wants to encourage teenagers interested in art to pursue their dreams.

"There are endless ways to make money through art," he said. "I want kids to see that. They can be the next Picasso or DaVinci."

Ballenger will be selling his work at CHAPS' "Potters on Gaffney's Old Field" pottery show Saturday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the old Central School on College Drive.