- October 09, 2026
- By Sala Levin ’10
Thirty years after sharing the pool as swimming teammates at the University of Maryland, Regan Billingsley ’98 and Alvaro Godinez ’99 discovered that they share a different passion: bringing Latin American artists’ work to a U.S. audience.
Billingsley and Godinez each have art and design companies that import pieces from Central America, giving both traditional and contemporary art and crafts a wider audience beyond the artists’ countries. Years after losing touch, they’re now collaborating with each other.
“It’s been really cool to come together with someone from your past now doing very similar things,” said Billingsley.
An interior designer, Billingsley was first inspired artistically by her mother, a French teacher who turned their Chevy Chase, Md., home into a reflection of “her love of everything French, from a provincial-style kitchen to a more formal living space,” she said. “I saw how important it was to craft an environment that really represented who you are.”
Billingsley took baby steps into the field as she repeatedly rearranged the furniture, repainted the walls and switched out lampshades in her childhood bedroom. She studied studio art and art history at UMD, then earned a graduate degree in interior architecture from the Pratt Institute in New York City. After working in Manhattan for 12 years, she returned to the Washington, D.C., area 13 years ago and started Regan Billingsley Interiors.
At textile shows in New York City, Billingsley discovered huipiles, traditional garments worn by indigenous women in Latin America. She’d see vintage huipiles turned into coin purses, pillows or bags, and became curious about their origins; she soon learned that they have a long history in Mesoamerica, dating back to the Aztec civilization.
Billingsley incorporates Central American textiles into her work as an interior designer.
Billingsley (second from right) imports Guatemalan textiles with the help of a women's weaving cooperative.
“They reflect the community where the woman is from and how she views the world,” said Billingsley. “When you’re taking those textiles and turning them into smaller objects and calling it ‘upcycled,’ it’s actually, in my mind, not very sustainable. If a woman is selling something that took her six months to make and is culturally significant, there has to be a need there.”
Huipiles are labor-intensive, woven by hand on either a backstrap loom that attaches around a weaver’s back, or a floor loom, a large piece of equipment operated using both feet and hands. Billingsley began traveling to Guatemala to meet artisans and hear from them about their work. Soon, she decided that she wanted to be part of preserving this ancient craft.
“The technique is at risk, like every kind of handmade technique throughout the world,” Billingsley said. Now she partners with a Guatemalan women’s weaving cooperative to sell the textiles to American customers through her line, RB Curated.
Recently, Billingsley posted a photo of her Guatemalan travels to social media. Godinez took note. He was born in Guatemala, and used to own a home with his family in the town of Antigua, the UNESCO World Heritage Site where Billingsley was posting from. “I asked her, ‘Hey, are you in Guatemala?’” he said.
Unbeknownst to Billingsley, Godinez was pursuing his own artistic connection to Latin America. An animal sciences major at UMD, Godinez earned a master’s in biotechnology studies at University of Maryland Global Campus and established a career as a research scientist. During visits to Antigua, Godinez visited art galleries and wondered why the work that he saw there — on par with fine art anywhere else in the world — wasn’t easily accessible to international collectors.
“Frankly, it’s a matter of access,” he said. Business, financial and legal logistics between Guatemala and the United States are thorny. Once, Godinez asked a successful Guatemalan artist how he reached potential buyers outside the country. “He said, ‘It’s so complicated that I don’t really sell to them. If they want to figure it out, they can, but I don’t want to deal with that,’” said Godinez.
Alvaro Godinez and his wife, Marcie, started Selûn Collective, which represents 50 artists from Guatemala and El Salvador.
Pamela Cerezo of Guatemala, a Selûn Collective artist, is inspired by geometry.
Godinez and his wife, Marcie, wanted to help make fine art from Guatemala and El Salvador more marketable to the worldwide audience. Together, they founded Selûn Collective, representing 50 artists from the two countries. The name is a combination of Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon, and luna, the Spanish word for moon; Alvaro and Marcie chose it to symbolize their role in reflecting the artists’ light to the world.
“We wanted to be the bridge that provides access to artists with great talent and have them be discovered by the world, because their work is amazing,” said Godinez, who now works on Selûn full-time. “We believe artists are the voice of the community, and we want to share that voice with the world.”
Once he reconnected with Billingsley on social media, the pair started talking about their similar work and about ways to collaborate. They’ve worked together on photo shoots, highlighting both the Guatemalan textiles and Selûn’s fine art.
“Maryland brought us together,” said Billingsley. “I’m supportive of his business and he’s supportive of mine.”
Guatemalan artist Sebastian Lopez Duran, represented by Selûn Collective, is a self-taught artist.