May 16th, 2006 : Minister Renaud Dutreil awards the First National Grand Prize of the SEMA* for traditional crafts –professional, period 2006– to Nicolas Salagnac, engraver and medal maker, Meilleur Ouvrier de France.
*The SEMA (Société d’encouragement des métiers d’art) is now replaced by the INMA (Institut national des métiers d’art).
Attendees: Pierre Chevalier, president of the SEMA; Marie-Françoise Brûlé, director of the SEMA; Etienne Vatelot, famous stringed instrument maker, former president of the SEMA; Alain Griset, president of the Chamber of Trades; Pierre Balme-Blanchon, Chamber of Trades of Isère-Grenoble, « Fine Crafts » supervisor in Rhône-Alpes; Charles Jouffre, representative upholsterer for the SEMA Rhône-Alpes; Bernard Werner, MOF, representative for Olga Saurat, president of the MOF; and my family: my parents, my wife Delphine and my children Léonard and Anouk.
Photographs by Jérôme Gorin for the SEMA
This competition (SEMA – traditional crafts – 2006) took place:
– at departmental level for 6 submissions, 3 of which were presented before a panel on February 6th, 2006;
– at regional level for 6 submissions, all of which were presented before a panel on March 29th, 2006;
– and then at national level for 19 submissions from every region of France on April 6th, 2006.
The submitted work was based on a three-part work of medals, suggestive of the city of Lyons. As it happens, the presented medal was: « Lyons, 2000 years of architecture, listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO », struck by the Editions Scriptoria.