David Blanch labored for hours in the spring of 2024 painting a Sarasota sunset that transformed two sidewalk panels on Pineapple Avenue into a burst of pink, blue and yellow.
It wasn’t a big payday — just a couple hundred dollars. But participating in the city’s Avenue of Art initiative was something the professional artist hoped would bring joy to people strolling downtown.
In August, he learned the city ground away his art in a cloud of concrete dust…