This week, the Fund for the Arts will launch its first fundraising campaign under new leadership.

Fund CEO Allan Cowen retired during last year’s campaign. He was accused of bullying certain artists and the fund was criticized for favoring performing arts over visual arts. Interim CEO Barbara Sexton Smith took over after Cowen left and is still at the helm. She expects to handle all of the campaign’s responsibilities until the search for a permanent CEO is complete.

“Our board is more engaged than ever,” she says. “I’m very pleased with the activity of our board members and I know they will get to conducting the search when the time is right but for the time being we are very focused on this audacious plan and this extreme goal.”

Visual artists said last year that the fund favored the performing arts for allocations. A review determined that the fund should be more relevant, innovative and evolutionary. Some steps have been taken to remedy that. For instance, if an arts organization finds a new business to make payroll contributions to the fund, that organization will get three quarters of all the money that business donates.

But the fund hasn’t addressed all of its critics. Artist Craig Kaviar recently called for ten changes to the Fund for the Arts in a letter to the organization’s leadership. A panel put together by the fund is reviewing the budget and allocation processes. Sexton Smith says the panel will suggest change during the campaign, and the fund will try to adjust.

“It’s an evolutionary process,” she says. “That’s the third thing the community asked of the fund was to be revolutionary and change with the times. So we will continue to evolve.”

The goal for this year’s campaign has increased 25 percent, to $9.2 million. The campaign kickoff is Tuesday at noon.

Gabrielle Hamilton is the owner and chef of Prune, a small but popular restaurant in New York City’s East Village.

Her memoir “Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef” chronicles her career, from her early years in rural Pennsylvania—to nearly being charged with grand larceny while working in New York’s bar scene—to catering—to the opening of Prune.

The critically acclaimed book was a New York Times Bestseller and was called the “best chef memoir ever” by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

Hamilton will be speaking at the Louisville Free Public Library on Saturday at 2:00pm, but first she spoke with WFPL reporter Erica Peterson.

Louisville-based insurance company Humana has agreed to return two Roman marble statues to Italy.

The statues of the Goddess Fortuna and another female figure stood in the Humana Building lobby for years. But recently, Humana officials found the works on a list of stolen art. The company voluntarily returned the works to Italian officials and is not seeking any payment for the statues.

“No no no, we think what’s appropriate at this instance is for us to return these treasures to where they rightfully belong, and that is their country of origin…Italy,” says spokesman Tom Noland.

Humana purchased the statues from a New York art dealer in 1984. Noland says the company will not attempt to get any money from the dealer, either.

The works have already been replaced in the lobby.

“We have actually put up where the statues used to be very lovely sculptures that have to do with Humana’s dream, which is to help people achieve lifelong well being. And also about the commitment of our associates, that is to say, our employees,” says Noland.

Noland says the company has a reasonable art collection, and with modern tracking technology, it’s unlikely any other works were stolen.

This is the second time this year art in Louisville has been found to have been stolen. Earlier this year, the Speed Art Museum found out that one of its works was stolen. Museum officials also said it’s unlikely any other part of the Speed’s collection is stolen, given the advances in technology for monitoring art sales.

The new director of the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft will start work next month, but he’s already been meeting with fundraisers in Louisville.

Aldy Milliken previously ran a gallery in Sweden where he connected with contemporary artists. He says he wants to raise money to bring their exhibits to Louisville.

“So many good artists today are trying to take back craft in their own practice,” he says. “That’s something I’ve been seeing in my travels around the world. And I thought this was a potential to go towards something a lot of people aren’t thinking about in institutions or galleries, but artists are thinking about these things.”

The museum’s previous director and deputy director were suddenly dismissed amid a slight controversy earlier this year. The board reportedly wanted someone more progressive.

“I come from working with some of the best contemporary artists in the world,” says Milliken. “It’s very much a progressive society or group that I work with. Clearly the board, when they hired me, they were definitely making a statement.”

An attorney was looking into the situation, but no charges were filed.

Milliken says he’d like to improve fundraising and make KMAC a small, efficient museum that can train students and emerging artists.

The Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Oldham County is home to about 1100 felons and one unusual theatre company. It’s an all-inmate ensemble called Shakespeare Behind Bars. For sixteen years, the group has staged plays like Hamlet and Macbeth, doing performances for other inmates and the public.

Shakespeare Behind Bars is now in rehearsals for its next production: Romeo and Juliet. WFPL’s Graham Shelby recently visited Luther Luckett to find out how – and why – this group of convicted felons plans to present Shakespeare’s tale of young love.

As part of its new strategy to update the allocation process, the Fund for the Arts has launched a new website.

Power2Give was developed in North Carolina. It’s modeled after sites like Kickstarter, but with a narrower focus. It lets nonprofits post proposals for arts and culture-related projects. Visitors to the site can then donate toward those projects.

The Fund for the Arts is working with the Metro United Way and LexArts to hone the pitches and to produce short videos for each project. For that, a small fee will be charged.

“The only percentage that stays with the fund is a normal 12 percent cost of general fundraising, web hosting, marketing and training,” says Fund for the Arts Acting President Barbara Sexton Smith. “So the fund is not set up to actually profit from the operation. We simply are covering our cost of covering the operation for these groups.”

Some matching funds will be available for projects as well. With help from the Kentucky Arts Council, the fund hopes to have $100,000 available to match visitor donations. The site was created by the Arts and Science Council of Charlotte, North Carolina.

As government sources for arts funding drying up, Smith says sites like Power2Give will play a larger role in funding art.

The fund was recently criticized for not evenly distributing money between various arts groups. Smith says changes to the annual budgeting process are forthcoming.

“Power2Give is ready to launch and go so we are live in the marketplace with a change already. And we are also going to be coming around with a change next spring and opening up our allocations to a variety of other groups in addition to our current cultural partners,” she says.

The fund began changing its strategic plan after the controversial departure of former CEO Allan Cowen earlier this year.

The new artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville will begin work in January.

Les Waters will be the fourth artistic director in the company’s 47-year history. He comes from California, where he has been director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre since 2003.

Waters has directed a number of new plays in Berkeley and other cities…including Louisville. He directed productions in the 2000 and 2004 Humana Festivals and he says he’s excited to now have a hand in steering the annual festival at Actors Theatre.

“It’s an esteemed organization with a wonderful reputation. It’s a leading job,” he says.

Among the plays Waters has directed is the Obie Award-winning “In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play),” which later went on to Broadway. Waters has been praised for embracing new writers while also working with distinguished playwrights and leading reworkings of classic productions.

“We people who work in the theater are descendants of people who, in their own time, were revolutionary or changed the face of theater, he says. “The thing I think about traditional work is that it has enormous humanity in it. The reason why it has survived is because it still has something to say to us.”

Waters’s appointment ends an extensive search that began in May, when previous director Marc Masterson left for a job with the South Coast Repertory in California.

A political science professor has won the University of Louisville’s 2012 Grawemeyer Award for World Order. Severine Autesserre is an assistant professor at Barnard College and Columbia University, and the author of “The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding.”

In her book, Autesserre examines the vast international resources that went toward peacekeeping in the Congo, and the failure of those efforts. In it, she examines the decades of violence in the Congo, despite significant international peacekeeping resources that were poured into the country.

The failure of peace, she argues, comes from a global culture that dismisses local conflicts as negligible.

“It’s the way of understanding the violence,” she said. “Diplomats and UN officials interpret fighting and massacres as the consequence of top-down problems. So for example, that will be manipulation by national leaders or manipulation by foreign groups.”

Outsiders often look toward elections to solve all problems, she says. But at least some attention should be paid to resolving local conflicts that exacerbate national violence.

Autesserre says she’s had conversations with State Department and UN officials about the importance of addressing local conflicts, but she says it’s hard to get most peace workers to change their understanding of the situation.

“I am dealing here with a culture that is really engrained,” she said. “The fact that we view national and international causes as the main drivers of conflict is something that is shared among virtually everybody. So basically I am asking people to review their entire understanding of conflict and violence.”

Autesserre says the lessons she gathered from peacekeeping in the Congo apply to many other war-torn countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition will go to Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Violin Concerto.”

The 30-minute piece debuted in 2009. It is at times somber and at times raucous and discordant. Salonen also believes it is the first time a modern drum set has been incorporated into a violin concerto. Award director Marc Satterwhite makes special note of the piece’s closing chord, which does not reflect any of the previous music. Salonen says the departure was intentional.

“When I thought about what was going on in my life at the moment, it became clear there was a symbolic meaning in this. I was just finishing my 17-year tenure with the L.A. Philharmonic. I was starting the next chapter in my life,” he says.

Previous Grawemeyer winners have included Salonen’s influences and respected contemporaries. He didn’t expect to join them when he finished the piece, though he knew he had written a meaningful composition.

“The process of writing this piece felt organic and it was not a big struggle. It seemed to kind of flow, not easily, but in a sort of organic, natural way,” he says.

The University of Louisville presents the Grawemeyer Awards and recipients receive $100,000. Salonen says he doesn’t yet have plans for the money, but he wants to encourage young people to compose music.

Listen to Salonen give a tour of parts of the piece:

And you can see the piece performed here:

A group of local photographers has met a fundraising goal to launch a new monthly magazine.

This…Is Louisville is modeled after Life Magazine but with photos and stories exclusively from the Louisville area. The first issue will be paid for with $3,500 raised on the website Kickstarter.

“The second issue will definitely be funded by advertising,” says organizer and photographer Maggie Huber. “Since we’re all used to doing the photo side of it and the business side isn’t our forte, we’re trying to produce a product we can pitch to people before.”

Huber says the high print quality and hyper-local focus should make the publication worth buying for Louisville residents.

“I’m hoping that people will be really into learning more about their neighbors and what’s going on in the community in a different way. The idea for us is to put a face on what’s going on. Hopefully it’ll draw people in with interest in that. Also the quality of the magazine—w’ere using a really thick stock paper. The idea is it’ll be so nice you won’t want to get rid of it,” she says.

Huber expects to launch the magazine in January.