The 24 Hr Church of Elvis

by Joe Schofield

Title

The 24 Hr Church of Elvis

Artist

Joe Schofield

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

It was a time of weirdness in Portland. Wait a minute, it is ALWAYS weird in Portland. You hear that Austin? Portland invented weird.

For three decades, one of the best known and quirkiest Portland tourist attractions was the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. The creation of artist Stephanie Pierce in the mid-1980s, the sidewalk-facing exhibit helped establish Portland as the home of the weird and the offbeat.

Pierce moved to Portland to become an artist after earning a law degree from Georgetown Law School (1980) and practicing corporate law for three years with AT&T. In 1985, she leased a 10,000-square-foot space at 1109 Southwest Washington Street in downtown Portland for an art gallery called Where's the ART!! It was there that she created, in a window facing the street, what she said was the first 24-hour, coin-operated art gallery—a whirring and spinning machine that dispensed messages.After a six-year hiatus, Pierce announced that the 24 Hour Church of Elvis would reopen in a storefront window at 408 Northwest Couch Street. By August 2009, a new exhibit was operating using two of the Commodore 64 computers from the original coin-operated display. This incarnation lasted until March 2013, when the window was boarded up.

The struggles and demise of the 24 Hour Church of Elvis were much lamented. "The church flamed out faster than a hunka, hunka burnin' love,” the Oregonian's Steve Woodward wrote in a story about a tourist who was "all shook up" after coming all the way from Tampa, Florida, to visit the church only to find it closed. Karl Samson, author of Frommer's Portable Portland, described it as “just plain unique."

Sold 10-21-21; 9-30-21; 11-29-22; 02-23-23; 5-5-23; 6-5-23; 07-06-23; 09-03-23; 12-2-23

Uploaded

September 22nd, 2021

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