Style Emerges Through Surrender

Day 9 30-Day Art Challenge October 2025 (Marie-Louise Bahnson)

The more you let go of control and comparison, the clearer your authentic voice becomes. It’s not found, it’s revealed.

Style isn’t something you chase.

It doesn’t appear through effort, trend-following, or comparison. In fact, the harder you try to define it, the further it seems to slip away. Style emerges when you stop trying to control the outcome and start allowing the work to unfold.

Letting Go of Control

Control often masquerades as discipline.

You plan. You refine. You second-guess. You hold back marks that feel too risky or too much. But over-control flattens instinct. It smooths out the very edges that give the work its character.

Surrender doesn’t mean chaos. It means trusting the decisions that arise in the moment before the mind has time to edit them into something safer.

The Weight of Comparison

Comparison is subtle, but heavy.

It pulls your attention outward, measuring your work against what’s already been seen, already been approved. The result is often work that’s technically competent but emotionally distant, filtered through someone else’s voice.

When comparison falls away, attention returns to the work itself. To what feels necessary rather than acceptable. This is where authenticity begins to surface.

Listening Instead of Directing

Surrender invites listening.

You start responding to what’s in front of you rather than imposing an idea onto it. The work becomes a conversation instead of a statement. Each decision builds on the last, guided by sensation, intuition, and attention.

This kind of making is slower, but deeper. Less performative. More honest.

Style as a Byproduct

Style is the residue of repeated, unfiltered choices.

It’s shaped by what you return to again and again: certain gestures, colours, rhythms, and instincts. Not because you decided they were your thing, but because they kept showing up when you weren’t interfering.

Over time, those patterns cohere. Others begin to recognise a voice long before you do.

The Quiet Confidence of Trust

Surrender builds trust in yourself and in the process.

You stop asking whether the work fits and start asking whether it feels true. The need for validation softens. The work stands on its own terms.

Style doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates quietly, through presence, repetition, and letting go.

So loosen your grip. Release the comparison. Trust what keeps emerging.

Your voice is already there waiting to be revealed.