Jay Leno from The Tonight Show paid a visit in 1995.
In addition to articles in the Oregonian, the exhibit window was featured in the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. Pierce was adept at garnering publicity for her gallery, and during the late 1980s and early 1990s the 24 Hour Church of Elvis became well known. The ceremony was broadcast live to thousands of drive-time Chicago listeners. In 1990, an Illinois radio station awarded an all-expenses paid trip to a Chicago couple to be married at the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. Pierce also offered Elvis-themed wedding services, including legal weddings for $25, novelty weddings for $5, and coin-operated weddings for $1. For a quarter, visitors could hear a sermon by Elvis, confess their sins, receive the Elvis catechism, or get a photo with the King of Rock and Roll. 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.Ībout a year later, Pierce moved Where's the ART!! to 219 Southwest Ankeny Street, where she recreated the window, which, at the suggestion of two high school students, featured the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. 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. 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. For three decades, one of the best known and quirkiest Portland tourist attractions was the 24 Hour Church of Elvis.