Laurie McCormick, an eight-year resident of Coronado, is a bundle of creative energy. As a professional art photographer, she travels the world, recording her adventures with scenes that appeal to her, then choosing the best for worldwide display on canvas. Her website, LaurieMcCormick.com, is an art gallery of her eclectic projects. She posts, “Living in the moment and capturing it is my way of sharing with the world how I see things, whether it be humorous, serious, playful, profound, or just plain creative.”
Entering the creative world, however, was a circuitous journey from her psychology major at Boston College and her first job after graduation in finance. She explained the value of her psychology degree in finance, “[I used psychology] every day of my life in being a financial advisor, that’s for sure…You’d have to really know the different personality types and who you’re talking to. If it’s an engineer, you just say ‘You’re absolutely right, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right’…I have to fix the right investment with the right client.”
When Merrill Lynch made it difficult to become a broker, she called Thomson McKinnon and said, “Look, I want to become registered as a broker… I need a course to prep me for this exam, and I would like to leave Merrill Lynch and join your company.” She passed the exam on the first try, becoming the first woman certified financial planner in New England and one of only 200 worldwide at that time.
The financial world may have been a man’s arena when McCormick started, but she found a way to locate her clients. From 1984 to 2005, on the East Coast and West Coast, she taught Investing for Women classes for a fee. A prominent ad in the Boston Globe or the LA Times describing what the women would learn drew calls for information to sign up for her seminars.
After a 46-year career in the financial world, her focus turned to photography as an art form, where her success continued. McCormick calls her condominium “The Gallery on the Canal” since it displays her award-winning projects as well as other artists’ works. Her website states, “Many of Laurie’s images have received First Place awards, Second Place awards, Honorable Mentions, and have been published in dozens of Gallery Books throughout the US.” Her Cuban Cool photograph is the most recognizable and was published in National Geographic.
McCormick travels with photography groups both internationally and within the United States and Canada. With her Canon camera, she captures sights that appeal to her and then transfers them to canvas. In addition to her Cuban Cool, some of her noted works are Raising Havana, Cuban Books, Tuscany Countryside, Daybreak in Venice, and Life in Burano.
Incorporating miniatures in her photography was a natural step for McCormick. She said, “Photography is the Visual Vocabulary that helps me to express my inner self and how I view the world. This is most profound when you view my storytelling work with my miniatures.”
Her turn to miniatures in her art came about in 2009 when a speaker in one of her advanced photo classes said, “Photograph what you love and where you are.”
She described the moment, “A light bulb went off; I loved my 50-year collection of miniatures, and they were in my closet. I worked from home, so the mini photos were born… I started using miniatures in my photography. One very famous series I have is called Miniature Appetite. It’s been syndicated in the UK.”
Returning from Tuscany in May, McCormick was asked to do a personality/life box, a winebox-sized box containing items that represent the person, Michael, in this case. She started buying all the miniatures, and since then has completed five boxes in four months. Assembling the box may take only a week, but collecting or creating the miniature items may require months of waiting. Her orders come mostly from China, which takes about three weeks. She creates items, such as a mouse from a seashell. She takes pictures of her artworks, reduces them to slightly larger than postage-stamp size, frames them, and attaches them to the walls with glue or magnets. Magnets allow her to rearrange items when she likes.
The finished box must be sanded, painted, and sealed before creating the scene. She says, “It’s a lot of thought process and stair steps, especially when I put in floors and panels in the back.” The boxes have lights with batteries. One even flickers like a candle.
Her personal box, Moments in Miniature, includes her camera and artwork prominently displayed, a fireplace, her boat, a captain’s hat, a wine box, and her cat. Buoys and a whale signify time in Boston. Poppies and sunflowers represent her recent Tuscany trip, and an Amazon box symbolizes her massive personal and miniature ordering.
A box for her friend Tina, named Living Large, contains a plethora of objects: beer, bananas for a job delivering them, a computer, Liar (which she named her scale), tools, a passport, a red jeep, two cats, chickens which she raises, and McCormick’s Miniature Appetite series and Cuban Cool.
The Wellsley Inn box is for her very dear friend Carlene and their times when she lived in the Boston area. They would meet at the inn, sit in the rocking chairs on the porch, and sip their cocktails. Since the inn is no longer open, McCormick found a picture of it, and the miniaturized version is in the box along with rocking chairs and a tiny picture of the two of them from the 80s.
The latest miniature box is Tuscany Tales with reminders of her recent trip. She focused on one traveler in the group, but with magnets, she can change the scene to represent others. The retired movie producer and author is characterized by his camera, desk, typewriter, books, and a chair she had made. As a special feature, she said, “I have a spotlight to make this light up, and it says ‘Now Playing’ for his movies.” This box is interactive because it can easily be altered to represent some of the other travelers in the Tuscany group.
Art surfaces in many forms, and McCormick’s miniature boxes, with intricate detail, are art and will be displayed at the Coronado Flower Show. She is currently creating boxes specifically for the show as orders of miniature flowers travel to her home.
VOL. 116, NO. 2 – Jan. 14, 2026