ASAO SAKAMOTO, the President of STUDIO EYES, has long been interested in urushi for its broad, diverse industrial applications throughout Japanese history, as well as in the West, for its modern industrial use, and for its potential value in the production of scientific tools and equipment. He has investigated many properties of urushi, such as its resistance to heat, water and static and its durability. Because urushi is known to be both oxygen and hydrogen resistant he has explored the use of urushi as a successful non-corrosive coating for oil gauges that possess rare earth magnets and, more recently, as an oxygen-barrier coating for the complex motors of artificial hearts, also possessing rare earth magnets which are subject to oxygen corrosion.

Many of the applications of Asao's industrial urushi also focus on the beauty and depth of lacquered colors, and frequently employ the new titanium and pewter colored laquers used by his wife, Rie. These applications include products such as Toshiba's Dynabook laptop computer, the dash boards of Nissan's Infiniti automobile and the Bentley Continental R, Parker fountain pens, Christofle's silverware, Leica and Pentax cameras, Nikon binoculars, Citizen watches, Shimano fishing rods, and a range of high end cigarette lighters.

Asao Sakamoto will discuss his experimental lacquer work and the rich future potential of this ancient technique at a special program at MIT, co-sponsored by Japan Society of Boston, MIT Japan Program and Keiko Fine Japanese Handcraft.