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.