The smoke has cleared in the skirmish over a guerrilla-art mural painted next door to Sugar Plum Vegan Bakery in Midtown. A graffiti-removal service hired by the Midtown Business Association painted over or "buffed out" the roughly 20-foot-tall mural of a three-headed blue and green man a little more than a week ago. Sacramento artist Shaun Turner had painted the outdoor mural Nov. 13 as a Second Saturday Art Walk event to help draw attention to the bakery, which opened at 2315 K St. in March. Trouble was, the mural was technically painted on the wall of a small commercial building next door at 2309 K St. The bakery’s manager and chef, Marshall Massa, and Sugar Plum owner Melissa Sugar

The wall of a Midtown restaurant soon will soon become a fresh canvas for a Sacramento muralist. Hot Italian and the Arts & Business Council of Sacramento have put out a call for artists to submit mural proposals with modern Italian themes. The winning artist will be paid $1,000, plus $500 in restaurant certificates, to design and install an 8-foot by 3-foot mural for the eatery's main dining room. The space was intended to hold a bicycle. But the restaurant's owners, Andrea Lepore and Fabrizio Cercatore, want to open it up to local artists instead and decided to hold a contest to choose the design, Lepore said. "It's really open to anyone," she said. "It could be any medium: photograph