Claire Coté is a multi-passionate artist, mother, off-grid homemaker and director of LEAP and Voices of the Northern Rio Grande. Springing from the natural and cultural ecology of the Northern New Mexico high desert, Claire's interdisciplinary approach synthesizes passions for art, education, collaboration, community building and social, emotional, and environmental awareness. Her multifaceted arts practice and collaborations explore and celebrate connection to “place.” Experimentation is at the core of Claire’s practice with drawing, painting, cyanotype, sound, photography, clay, interactive sculpture and installation.

As an artist and curator, Claire has worked with the US National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service on commissions, residencies and site-based environmental artworks and events. For seven years she practiced as an international collaborative duo with English artist, Anna Keleher, including their residency at Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark in Ireland, and an itinerant residency across Europe. Recently, Claire participated in the Kinhouse Residency in Fort Wayne Indiana. Her work has been exhibited at UNM Art Museum in Albuquerque, Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Arnolfini Bookshop in Bristol, England, Great Sand Dunes National Park Visitor Center, and Goggleworks Art Center in Reading PA, as well as in galleries, libraries, radio broadcasts, and walks in New Mexico, U.S., U.K., and Europe.

Claire holds a B.A. in Studio Art and Cultural Anthropology from University of New Mexico and an M.A. in Arts and Ecology from Dartington College of Art, England and and completed UNM’s Land Arts of the American West program. In 2009, she founded the environmental art initiative LEAP (Land Experience and Art of Place) and in 2018, co-founded the Voices of the Northern Rio Grande community archive. She serves as a board member for Questa Creative Council and works closely with local nonprofit Localogy. Born and raised in Northern New Mexico on the Taos Plateau, Claire lives with her husband and two daughters in their off-grid home near Questa, New Mexico.