It was in 1976 the first time I touched a spray can, I was a 10 year old chavalito walking the streets of South Central LA.  I would put up the placasos of all my lil friends, up and down the alleys on 20th and San Pedro.  By the time I was in Junior High School those placaso turned into Roll Calls to my homies of the Primera.  I loved the old English fonts the most, heavily influenced by the East Los Chicano Fonts, that I grew up watching when I was a kid in East LA.  By the age of 15 Hip Hop had change my outlook on life and opened a window into the New York world. Popping, Breaking and Rap began to intrigue me and then the Buffalo Galls music video captured my imagination as Dondi spray painted the scene with warm color fills.  My first piece was a very ugly scrawl on a wall in Maywood that read "Graff", way before the term was even used to describe graffiti.  While breaking moves gained notoriety I was introduced to the RadioTron, a club that embellished graffiti art on every inch of the building. I was fascinated and decided then to give my self a real graffiti name that would make me famous in the Graff scene, I chose Phaze 52. I rocked it on walls, bus stops, alleys, stickers, everywhere I stood I left that name somewhere nearby. Then in 1984 I wanted to get as much attention as possible I tagged Phaze 52 in the Principals office of Bell High School and just as I was about to hit the lower arrow He walked in, stone cold busted. I cleaned the school the whole day as a deal with the principal so I could avoid getting arrested.  I decided to change my strategies, I would now only do full color pieces and do my best not to let anyone know who I was, I created a new name...Zender One.

The rest is history.

John Zender Estrada.