A painter can paint a bowl of fruit in class... her or his interpretation may be to make it look life like (identical) or abstract. But each painting will end up being unique in it's own way.
We call the painter an artist, even though his subject matter is the same as everyone else in the class, or maybe the subject being used is one that has been painted hundreds of thousands of times before such as the Mona Lisa. They are copying something, basically using a pattern.
Being quilters, we may choose to follow a pattern. We may choose to make the quilt look identical to the pattern or have subtle or bold differences. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of thousands of times a pattern has been recreated, each quilt will have it's own subtle to bold differences.
Artists who paint, have tried to recreate famous paintings to no avail... there is always atleast one aspect that distinguishes an original from a copy :wink: and yet we still consider them an artist :D
The same happens when we use a pattern for quilting, even using the same identical fabrics. There will still be differences...
A bowl of fruit to a painter, a pattern for a quilter...
We all create in ways that are pleasing to us individually. We may be more traditional, more abstract, or falling inbetween.
So in my mind, we are all artists. Some of us may be accomplished famous artists and others of us not. But all of us are artists just the same :D:D:D