Hotmer, who holds degrees in Women’s Studies, Religious Studies and Costume Design, produced costumes for film and theater in California until she was offered a job at Sinclair Community College. She ran its costume shop for 15 years, until the pandemic, when she reinvented herself as a small business owner and a local advocate for environmental awareness.
Hotmer, 52, lives in the Linden Heights neighborhood of Belmont with her husband, Luke Tandy, the owner of Dayton’s Skeleton Dust Records. Pink Moon Goods is named after the Nick Drake song “Pink Moon.”
PINK MOON IS ON ITS WAY
Hotmer’s impetus to open a shop came during her 2018 honeymoon road trip through New England. “We’d be in these little towns, and I would wander around and there was always a store kind of like mine, with local, well-made products. Pretty things that I like to have at home.” The experience of helping with the record store gave her confidence to open her own shop, while pop-up sidewalk sales hosted by the Downtown Dayton Partnership helped put her business in motion.
SALUTE THE SUN
Hotmer wakes up by 8 a.m., has coffee while reading “Braiding Sweetgrass,” and practices yoga with her husband. “We really aren’t ones to crave physical activity. We kind of have to force ourselves to do it. We started doing a 15-minute Sun Salutation routine in the morning. It’s enough to get our blood pumping and get some good stretching in.”
EAT YOUR GREENS
Breakfast is fresh vegetable juice made from local produce out of New Lebanon’s Mile Creek Farm. After prepping lunch, Hotmer goes out to her garden for an hour. She patronizes local suppliers — including Gardening Haven, Tom’s Mulch and Meadow View Growers in New Carlisle. She tamps down any squirrel-disrupted soil, and cuts flowers to bring to the shop. After gardening, Hotmer responds to emails and makes a reel to promote her pop-up vendors.
HEY WORLD
Hotmer gets to the shop early to vacuum and unpack goods. She turns on the lights, puts on music, and opens at noon. “I have seen so many videos of women opening their shop doors, it’s just a thing. I still remember the first time I did one and thought, ‘I’ve been dying to do this.’ I think about it every morning, that first moment of flipping that open sign and putting the sandwich board out and you’re like ‘Hey world — I’m here, come in and look at what I’m doing.’ It feels exciting and hopeful.”
I COULDN’T ASK FOR ANOTHER
“I’d been driving by this building every day on my way to work for the last 10 years,” Hotmer explains as “Groove is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite starts playing. “It was boarded up and graffitied on and, in 2020, they started working on it. I met the Realtor and that was it. Luke and I both moved here before Dayton started growing. At that time, we used to see these stickers ‘Dayton’s alright if you’ve never been anywhere else’ and we were like, well then go if you don’t like it, or do something cool. I think that’s what started happening, people said ‘Let’s do something cool,’ and it inspired both of us.”
WORKING LUNCH
She eats lunch — an egg omelet with rice and veggies. Then she attends to her bookkeeping and bills. She walks through the store, where hints of her costuming past appear in textiles like the handmade window curtains. She’s goes about dusting and rearranging the display ledges that she and her husband built for the shop, re-stocking and keeping track of items. During down time she works on “little creative projects,” like prepping milk jugs to use in a seed planting activity or creating paper flowers for the window display. She unpacks a shipment of new stationery from Buy Olympia, a company selling independent art based out of Olympia, Washington.
TEA FOR TWO
“When I am able to, I really enjoy walking people to the door after they make their purchase. This is something I experienced in Japan, and I thought it was such a sweet gesture of customer service. Also, one thing I do often in the shop is offer coffee or tea to customers. At least once or twice a week I sit and have coffee with my friend Charlie who lives nearby.”
LESS IS MORE
Hotmer checks online orders. Products include beeswax candles, botanically dyed linens, organic beauty products and wooden toys. “I like to pack orders and write little notes to my customers. Every time I open a box, I’m flattening paper” to repurpose in later shipments. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we always had stuff we could reuse. As I got older, I started to see the value in saving, fixing, repairing things, and creating a lifestyle around less need for consumerism.”
IT’S CLOSING TIME
Near 6 p.m., Hotmer waters the dahlias sprouting by her front door and heads home for the day. Once there, she decompresses on the front porch or in the garden with Tandy. They talk about their days and maybe have a cocktail, with a record playing inside. Then they make dinner which in the warm months may involve throwing something on the barbecue and a fire outside with friends. Hotmer reads before day’s end — currently it’s “Olive Kitteridge.” Next, she plans to read “Anne of Green Gables” for the first time. “I want to gift the book to my niece this summer, but I want to read it first so I can share that experience with her,” she says.
LOOKING TO SUMMER
“I am excited to get my little garden outside the shop planted and to see some color and life on the corner. (I’m hosting) a clothes-mending workshop at the end of May and a flower head wreath workshop in June. I am going to draw a hopscotch out on the sidewalk by the shop and am looking forward to having some kids and friends come by to play. I have heard from other retail shop owners that summer can be slow so we will see if that is true and if so I will come up with some fun activities and experiences to bring people in.”
THE PARTICULARS
Pink Moon Goods is located at 2027 East Fifth St. in Dayton. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 12-6 p.m. Find out more at www.pinkmoongoods.com and on Instagram @pinkmoongoods.
You can reach this writer at hannah.kasper@gmail.com.
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