Saci (Yukio Okamura)

Saci is the name Japanese pipe maker Yukio Okamura gives to the pipes he makes himself. The name describes a one-man workshop that uses no power tools and whose annual output does not exceed a few dozen pieces. Okamura is reported to have been born in 1950 and to hail from around Osaka; accounts based on the maker's own telling say the brand name carries a favorable connotation, though the word's meaning has not been confirmed by independent sources.

A Bench Started Late

Okamura took up pipe making in middle age, in 2000. He is said to have spent roughly the previous twenty years moving back and forth between Japan and various Asian countries, taking on all kinds of different creative work; his description of himself as "a person who plays" is also said to be a legacy of that period. Having no fixed profession, he had plenty of free time at the bench once he settled in Kyoto.

According to the account, the master left Kyoto in the mid-2000s and settled on the island of Suō-Ōshima in the Seto Inland Sea. Part of Yamaguchi Prefecture, this island is a quiet settlement known for its citrus orchards. It is reported that there is no separate workshop building, and that work proceeds at a bench set up in a corner of the house; this detail has not been confirmed by a second source.

Method and Material

What sets Saci pipes apart is that production is carried out almost entirely with hand tools. Okamura keeps away from powered machines and opens the chamber with wood-carving gouges, which places him among the pipe community's most "primitive" workers by method. He is noted as paying particular attention to the drying of the briar blocks he uses.

For the stem he uses only ebonite; where a band or decoration is called for, he turns to boxwood, water buffalo horn or bamboo. Rather than sealing the surface with a glossy polish, he feeds it with oil, preserving the wood's matte texture. Annual production is reported to stay within a few dozen pieces. Because the most recent accessible records on the workshop date to around 2020, it is unclear whether the master still produces today.

Search for a Style

Among the masters Okamura cites as models are Jørn Micke and Lars Ivarsson. At the same time, by his own account, he emphasizes wanting to move away from the Danish school line and build a shape language of his own. This dual position is typical of the independent makers who gained visibility in Japan in the 2000s: adopting the Scandinavian freehand tradition as a technical school while leaning toward a local simplicity in proportion and surface treatment. Saci is cited, in the entry on Japanese pipe making beyond Tsuge, as an example of small-scale benches lying entirely outside factory production.