Our Story

Hi, we’re Steven and Nick — partners in life, and the two people behind everything you see here.

For more than two decades, we’ve built a life together around creativity, community, wellness, giving back and a shared belief in the importance of human connection. Life has also handed us our share of unexpected turns. Through cancer, a stroke, recovery and challenges of our own, we’ve learned that joy doesn’t have to replace struggle. The two can sit beside each other. And sometimes, the smallest moments of joy are what give us the strength to keep moving forward.

That belief is at the heart of what we’re building together now. We believe generosity connects people, community can extend far beyond the people we already know, and art can be much more than something we hang on a wall. It can be experienced, shared, given away and passed forward.

This store is our way of bringing those ideas together through something we both love: sunflowers. Through Steven’s photography, the JoyKit and the JoyMap Project, we’re building a growing collection of fine-art sunflower photography with a bigger purpose — to create more opportunities for people to connect, give and share a little joy with someone else.

Clip from the Lessons from the Sunflowers TELUS Originals documentary

It Started with Sunflowers

During COVID, Steven decided to do something he had never done before: plant sunflowers and spend the summer photographing them. What began as a creative goal during an uncertain time quickly grew into a much bigger idea.

He imagined creating the world’s largest sunflower image — something the size of a soccer field, assembled by hundreds of people, each carrying a small piece of something much larger. The idea was wonderfully ambitious and a little crazy, but at its heart was something simple: use art to bring people together and create a shared moment of hope, beauty and joy.

When the Idea Came to Life

On May 13, 2022, that vision became real — just not quite the way we first imagined it. More than 300 people came together for a November Project Canada community workout, running and walking Walterdale Hill overlooking Edmonton. Some were regulars, others were there for the first time, and none of them knew that waiting at the end was a surprise: two sunflower prints, selected from 30 different photographs, for every person. 

Before the group photo, everyone was invited to keep one print and give the other to someone in their life who needed a little more joy, hope or light. Together, they transformed the field into a remarkable pop-up sunflower garden — a vibrant celebration of diversity in both the people gathered there and the sunflower images they held.  

Hundreds of individuals, each holding something different, became part of one collective picture. Then the sunflowers began moving outward into families, friendships and communities — turning one shared moment into hundreds of personal acts of kindness, connection and joy.

Our Vision

We share a simple belief: art can do more than hang on a wall. It can connect people, carry meaning and become a way of sharing joy.

Our vision is to build the world’s greatest collection of fine-art sunflower photography — an ever-growing collection inspired by the extraordinary beauty, individuality and resilience we see in sunflowers.

The JoyKit turns that belief into something tangible: one sunflower print to keep and one to give away. We call it Share Art. Spread Joy. It’s a simple reminder that beauty and hope grow stronger when they’re shared — one small act of kindness and connection at a time.

Through the JoyMap Project, we want those individual moments to become part of something much bigger. The JoyMap allows us to see joy travel — from one person to another, one community to another, and eventually around the world.

The Story Behind the Story

If you’d like to understand where all of this came from, this 83-minute TELUS documentary takes you deeper into our story — the adversity we’ve faced, the creativity and community work that shaped us, and the experiences that continue to influence why we create, give and believe so strongly in the power of joy and human connection.

Watch the 83-minute TELUS documentary →