Stephanie G. Pierce, who ran Portland’s legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis from 1985 through 2001, is currently looking at new venues in order to re-open her legendary church of the bizarre and 24 hour coin-operated art gallery. Steve Woodward recently wrote about Stephanie’s quest for a new home in The Oregonian. If you want to help in this church revival, consider ordering a t-shirt or other stuff from the online store.
Pierce created bizarre art, such as the Miracle of the Spinning Elvises, the World’s Cheapest Psychic and a portable art gallery banned from the Rose Festival Fun Center for failing to meet family-friendly standards. She conducted weddings legally and for laughs, lived in her storefront after dubbing it Biosphere 6000 and drove around in a motorized love seat.
The 24 Hour Church of Elvis was a wonderful place. The last time I was there was in 1996 during the Portland Santacon ‘96 event when over a hundred Santas stopped by the church, which is one of the scenes in my pseudo-documentary of the event.
Thanks to Spacemonkey for the tip!
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- 1996 Portland Santacon 10th Anniversary Party
- You’d Better Watch Out: Portland Santacon ‘96
- 1996 Portland Santacon Screening & Party Tomorrow Night
- Portland Santacon on NPR’s All Things Considered
- Johnny Cash and Andy Kaufman Do Elvis
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I almost got married at the 24 Hour Church of Elvis! I think we ended up getting fortunes instead – marriage seemed awfully expensive at something like $2.00.
FYI– This woman is a lunatic. She deserves no public venure for her madnes..
I got married here! It was, erm, VERY Portland! I recall being told to twirl around and utter “There’s no place like home” three times and to then tap my heels in some strange homage to Judy Garland.
Our post ceremony parade consisted of the entire wedding party blocking traffic on Burnside with large ‘HONK’ signs and then waltzing through the (now closed) Burger King over the road playing bad muzac on a Walkman and external speakers mounted in a cardboard box, this was all much to the annoyance of the duty manager. A very memorable day on multiple levels.
Ah Portland my Portland…
I am an old friend ofI Stephanie G Pierce and would like to share some light bulbs in the closet that could come out and be quite interesting in this day and age of the 2000’s –the 70′ get so much attention but what about the things that were happening in the 80?? WHERES THE ART?? YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS!! Email me back darn it Binkie