Ellen Sea Art & Antiques

This place is seemingly stuffed to the gills with all kinds of artwork. Art gallery plus gift shop equals Ellen Sea. Anything from oil paintings, watercolors, engravings, wood carvings, encaustic, hand blown glass, lithographs to mixed media is available. Some famous artists, like Renoir prints, can be seen, but more often than not there are local artists being sold from all over the states, but especially Ohio. Local artists include Robert Brubaker, Art Hedges and JoAnn Warnke, a local Columbus woman who passed away recently in 2007. Many of the artworks are antiques from as far back as the 1800s.Major name gift sellers are sold as well, including Royal Doulton, Lladró and Longaberger. There is an old country kitchen room with kitschy gifts but also Longaberger baskets and china.Ellen Sea does some consignment, but most of the items are acquired by the owners, Lawrence Myers and his wife, Claudia. The goal for the Myers is to sell things at a price that most people can buy A great deal of what they come by is consignment with the people selling the pieces. The Myers do have contributing dealers who do consignment with them, including Don Treux, who makes Amish style furniture.

I was not impressed of how this shop was set up. Everything was crammed together and wasn't able to really look at what was displayed. The environment felt stuffy (not in an elitist way) and honestly the quality of antiques was subpar. I wanted to enjoy this but was not thrilled at what I saw and experienced.

I was looking for a birthday gift for my brother, who is a man of many talents and interests, but still a bit difficult to honor with a sentimental or meaningful gift. For some reason, on this particular birthday, I wanted my gift to be just that: sentimental and/or meaningful. I was very short on ideas until I remembered that I'd seen a nice variety of concrete stones and figures displayed in front of a shop in Powell, and that some of those stones appeared to be engraved (or otherwise designed) with military symbols. ("Symbols?" What is wrong with my vocabulary right now?!) So after driving by countless times, I finally had reason to pay a visit to this shop, Ellen Sea. Upon closer look, I loved one of the Air Force stones, and found the price to be lower than I had anticipated, which was a nice bonus. The male store owner was inside and incredibly friendly. I felt really good about making this purchase from him, and he was very interested in the backstory of the recipient. According to my brother's girlfriend, my brother really loves the stone, and it sounds like my efforts in finding a meaningful gift were worthwhile. Overall, I wasn't extremely taken with the art or other items inside this shop, but that doesn't mean I won't be back for more gifts for others!