With her passport stamped, a suitcase full of paintings and the archives of “This American Life” playing on her computer, Amy D’Apice set about assembling a series of works inspired by travel in a celebration of the spaces we all share, but often don’t think about. Trekking through superficially disparate locales — Camden, New Jersey, Montisi, Italy, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Bainbridge Island and others — she sketched the overlooked spots: the alleys, the backsides of buildings, marketplaces and pockets of nature set within urban strongholds to create her new series “Kindred Spaces,” on display at Bainbridge Arts & Crafts from Friday, Sept. 2 through October.

The finished paintings are not literal recreations of the locations on which they are based, but instead representative of how D’Apice remembers — and wishes to remember — them.

“I never work from one particular source,” D’Apice said.

“I’m always working from something I saw that inspired me. I might have sketched it, then I want to add something so I’ll do research. I’ll make something up. So a lot of times people will ask me, ‘Oh, is that such-and-such a place?’ And I always say, ‘Well, it was inspired by such-and-such a place.’”

She eschews snapshots for the more time intensive but personal field recording process of sketches. And the finished painting is almost always very similar to the original sketch, the spirit present from the start.

“My drawings really inform my paintings in terms of color and composition and the spirit because the street sketching is so lively and intense and fresh,” she said. “I try to bring that to the paintings.”

The BAC exhibition will consist of about 30 paintings, some part of smaller micro-series, others more divergent, but all of them celebrating commonplace settings.

“I really like drawing the overlooked, the things that people wouldn’t consider material for art,” D’Apice explained.

“It expands your awareness of what art can be, so I always look for the thing that nobody else would draw, perhaps or the angle that nobody else would think of.”

It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and D’Apice said she is often approached while she sketches, or perhaps overtly observed, by curious passersby.

“I remember this one time in Thailand I was drawing this recycling center,” she recalled. “It was just garbage and plastic, and I’m sitting on my stool drawing this recycling center and these Thais are coming over and they’re looking at me like, ‘What is she doing?’ And right behind me is this gorgeous temple. In Thailand, that’s very common that you’ll have these things next to each other. But they were thinking, ‘What’s with this crazy American?’”

It is just such an opportunity, however, that D’Apice loves best of all, the chance to talk about art and the process behind it with the curious. She’s been an art teacher for many years and has led numerous workshops at BAC as well, and she enjoys dispelling some of the mystique around art. To that end, D’Apice will give a special multimedia presentation designed to accompany the exhibition at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8 at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art auditorium.

“I’m going to talk about the process of making the show and I’m going to talk about art in general,” she said. “I want to talk about inclusion, even of audience members or non-artists, into what art is about and give them some vocabulary because so many people want to understand art but they just feel like they don’t have any tools with which to speak to it or judge it.

“I want to empower people to be part of art wherever you are,” she added. “I do hope that my work leaves a little bit unsaid that the viewer has to fill in because then they engage.”

Admission is free, though advance tickets are recommended for the BIMA presentation. Visit www.kindredspaces.brownpapertickets.com to order. D’Apice also blogs about her techniques and experiences, and showcases works in progress at www.artconspiracy.net. The name is a joke, as her goal is the opposite of a conspiracy.

“I was in Myanmar for 27 days and I made it my mission to draw every single day, one drawing a day, and give it away to somebody that was looking or maybe it was of them,” she said. “I ended up doing about 52 and it was amazing because I didn’t speak their language — of which they have many there. But art is such a universal language. Through images we can talk to each other and communicate with each other.

“The people were very nice,” she added. “I find, generally people all over the world are kind for the most part and they want to be understood and seen.”

Most of the painting for “Kindred Spaces” was done in Thailand.

“I took it off the wood and I rolled it up and I took it on the airplane,” D’Apice laughed. “My suitcase was full of paintings.”

Still, whatever clothes or souvenirs she may have had to leave behind pale in comparison to the joy she felt at sharing such imagery with an audience. Being an artist, she said, is a honorable profession — and the only one she ever aspired to.

“You do it for the love of it,” she said. “I think it’s one of those professions that you assume you’re going to be starving — which is not true, by the way. It seemed heroic, romantic, special to be an artist and I still think that’s true.

“Artists are the mouthpieces for all the other people who don’t make art, who recognize, ‘Oh, that’s how I see it too.’ Or now they see it that way, now that you’ve shown it to them.”

‘Kindred Spaces’

What: A solo exhibition and multimedia presentation of new paintings by Amy D’Apice.

When/Where: A multimedia presentation by the artist, including a discussion of technique and method, will take place at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art auditorium at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8. The corresponding show will be on display at Bainbridge Arts & Crafts from Friday, Sept. 2 through Oct. 2.

Admission: Free, though advance tickets are recommended for the BIMA presentation.

Visit www.kindredspaces.brownpapertickets.com to order.