CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – More than 20 West Virginia businesses are being recognized for exporting products to a new country last year by the Department of Economic Development.

One art-based business located in Charleston’s West Side, Echo-Lit , said they sold their designs to 15 different countries last year. Owner Jeanne Stevenson said she never imagined her establishment would go beyond borders the way it has these last several years.

“When I was wandering around the hollers of Wayne County as a kid, I was just looking at Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Luna Moths and being inspired by nature, and just being happy to connect with nature,” Stevenson recalled from her childhood. “As I’ve gotten older knowing now that as my career and as our whole little business, we get to share our passion for art educationally and for our beautiful state. I think I would be shocked as a little kid if I would have known how far we’ve come.”

Those childhood memories in nature turned into a deeper love for art and for West Virginia.

“I have always been involved in art somewhere. It’s always been a part of my life,” Stevenson said.

After career changes, life opened a new door for Stevenson and her husband, Chris, back in 2008.

“I had actually gone to a meeting with my elementary-aged son with his guidance counselor, and they had the exact same posters on the wall that I bought at my first bookfair in the 70s,” she recalled.

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Those posters, and the lack of updates at her son’s school in terms of art and educational materials in the classroom, stuck with her.

“I came home and away like ‘You know Chris, maybe we should make some educational posters, like new ones. See if schools would want to buy them,’” Stevenson said.

So, in 2008, they kicked off that idea in their basement. It all began with handcrafting designs and discussions with teachers about what kind of designs they would want to see to assist them with lessons.

“When we first started, our goal was to get into the educational market, and we did. We went at it pretty hard, especially in language arts, library art, any kind of book art. We took that market by storm, and we did really well in it,” Stevenson said.

“Over the years as we were working on educational art, we, because West Virginia is so gorgeous and inspiring, decided to start doing art celebrating our state. As we looked beyond our little basement and got the energy and the push to move into a storefront, we just naturally started doing art that celebrated the natural beauty, the places you can go in West Virginia, our cryptic lore, and there’s no stopping.”

However, Stevenson saw a need to go beyond the Mountain State to sell educational materials. International shipping costs hurt the business when they first began making international connections, so Stevenson said they’ve focused more recently on digitalizing their designs and making them more accessible in the international market.

“That has already increased our international sales. I’d say about 5% of our sales now are international, and we’re going to keep building on that,” she said.

Stevenson said a great amount of their exported designs will be used for ESL programs, teaching basic English words and sentences to other communities.

“We are starting in Latin America because we’re tailoring our products for English Second Language schools, particularly in Latin America. It’s a big world out there, and as we test that market, we’ll develop more products there. I think we’re going to start looking towards Asia because we’ve done some research about countries who are most likely to buy products like ours, and it looks like Asia has a lot of countries that would be interested in our products.”

The storefront and new partnerships opened the door even further.

“So, I’m passionate about art, I’m passionate about education, and coming here and working with Jeanne and Chris and being able to incorporate all of that experience and to bring everything together, and then create these beautiful things that go out all around the world,” Echo Lit’s lead designer Megan Dailey said.

Dailey, a former teacher, said her position allows her to combine two of her passions, education and art, while also celebrating West Virginia. She said that too often, misconceptions about West Virginia limit people outside of the state from knowing what the Mountain State has to offer.

“Whether it’s a big city or a region like Appalachia or even something as specific as Appalachia, where you see the character of that region is in its art and its music, and so to have art by and about West Virginia going around the world, just, it goes against the stereotypes that you see and the jokes on the late-night shows,” Dailey said.

Both Dailey and Stevenson said they plan to continue creating more products to make further national and international connections all while spreading the beauty they both see in West Virginia.

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