Keema and Tekla Waterfield were raised by a young single mother in Southeast Alaska after their father left the family. With very little money but a passion for music and art, their mother moved them frequently in pursuit of her education, gigs, and new relationships. “Music festival brats” from a young age, Keema and Tekla reveled in summer trips to watch their mother perform with her friends and also sing beside her; those gatherings would become the most stable facet of their childhoods.

As the sisters grew, art and their at-times traumatic childhood led each of the sisters on different paths. Keema wrote Inside Passage, a new memoir about her nomadic Alaskan childhood, the toll her upbringing took on her, and the effect it had on her relationship with her mother. Tekla became a singer-songwriter whose most recent release, “New Skies” landed in the NACC Top 30 Folk Album Charts in October of 2021. On this episode of And Then Everything Changed they share their perspective on their childhood, how each of them grappled with their father leaving, and why art has always been central in their lives.