John Warden MacKenzie was born in Albany, California in 1942.
He began his artistic education in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The drawing classes he took at that time focused on subjects such as Bedouin tribal customs and animal studies. When it came time for MacKenzie to enter high school, his parents sent him to Rome, Italy, and for the next three years he remained there, taking art classes at the Roman Forum, the American Academy of Art, and at the Vatican Museum in Vatican City.
Following high school, MacKenzie attended the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature with a minor in archeology.
He had hoped to major in art, but was discouraged from doing so by his father. Putting aside his desire to be an artist for many years, MacKenzie instead became a United States Customs Agent, working in Baltimore, Maryland and then in Columbus, New Mexico. He retired after twenty-nine years of service as a U. S. Customs Inspector on the U. S./Mexico border in 1996, finally able to return to art as a full time pursuit.
About 30 years ago, MacKenzie picked up his brushes and canvases again, painting whenever he got a chance. He eventually went back to school to study watercolor and drawing at the University of Texas at El Paso and then apprenticed with Texas artist William Arthur Herring in 1998.