{"id":6446,"date":"2013-03-07T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6446"},"modified":"2013-03-07T13:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T21:23:00","slug":"camosun-arts-studio-hosts-whl-hockey-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/03\/07\/camosun-arts-studio-hosts-whl-hockey-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun arts studio hosts WHL Royals’ Ben Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you see a guy with flaming red hair in the visual arts pottery studio at the Lansdowne campus, you might just have a budding Western Hockey League star in your midst.<\/p>\n

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Camosun student and Victoria Royals player Ben Walker (photo by Damen Korkoras\/Nexus)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Victoria Royals right winger Ben Walker has been doing pottery as an independent study through Camosun College since January, but before you go and ask him how his team is doing, or to sign your Royals jersey, consider this: maybe he\u2019s here to get away from the game for a bit and tap into his off-ice creativity.<\/p>\n

Although, with Walker recently caught in action in the pottery studio by a CTV camera crew, his cover is probably blown.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually there\u2019s two or three students in the studio at the same time as me working on their stuff and you kind of make small talk when you\u2019re in there,\u201d says Walker. \u201cBut, to be honest, I try to keep who I am as quiet as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker, a native of Edina, Minnesota, has been with the Royals for the past two years and is currently enjoying a breakout season with 45 points in 51 games. He says he misses his pottery sessions when the Royals hit the road, but every time he comes to the Lansdowne campus he values his time here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough not being able to go in there every day and make something,\u201d says Walker, \u201cbut at the same time we\u2019ve got this long and pretty rough hockey schedule. It\u2019s just such a fun thing to throw some clay down on the wheel and relax in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun visual arts instructor John Boehme is responsible for overseeing Walker\u2019s independent study. Boehme says the Royals player is a natural for ceramic art.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s great. He\u2019s not the kind of guy to toot his own horn or anything, but his work has been very impressive,\u201d says Boehme. \u201cWhat he\u2019s done so far has been tremendous, outstanding, and it\u2019s up there with the work of my second-year students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker, whose mother is a professional ceramic artist, says he\u2019d like to pursue art after his hockey career is over. When the Royals are in town, Walker does his best to get up to Camosun once or twice a week for several hours and hone his craft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I really like doing and when I\u2019m done hockey I\u2019d really like to go to art school to become a full-time potter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Walker sees a lot of similarities between his sport and his study of choice; both require creativity and working with your hands. But it\u2019s the pottery that allows Walker an escape from the rigours of playing upper-level junior hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cPottery gives you that chance to relax and get away from the hard practices and excruciating games,\u201d he says, \u201cso it\u2019s a nice time to let your body and mind rest and just hang out and have a little fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker says his teammates, several of whom are still in Grade 11 and 12, have been supportive of his art, even buying him a sketchbook. So, did he return the favour by making them all signature Ben Walker mugs?<\/p>\n

\u201cA few guys have asked me to draw pictures for them,\u201d he laughs, \u201cbut, no, no pottery gifts–not yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you see a guy with flaming red hair in the visual arts pottery studio at the Lansdowne campus, you might just have a budding Western Hockey League star in your midst. Victoria Royals right winger Ben Walker has been doing pottery as an independent study through Camosun College since January, but before you go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-march-6-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6446"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6513,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions\/6513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}