Okursarı was born in 1948 in the Tire district of Izmir. He started quilting as an apprentice at the age of 13 and became a journeyman in 1964. Okursarı worked at the Tire Municipality between 1972 and 1993, and he has been training new apprentices as a quilting master at the Tire Belediyesi Kent Müzesi (Tire Municipality City Museum) since 2014.