I think most of us start out thinking of quilting as a skill... to sew/cut straight lines, etc. But some of us stay within a comfort zone and only use patterns, being careful to buy fabrics all from the same designer for the same quilt (or using the dots on the selvage to guide them), even binding it the way the directions say to do. Others of us study pictures (or quilts at a show) and think "What if that were bold colors, not pastels?" and preceed to make that quilt that is in their mind. These quilters may or may not be as good semestresses as the ones who don't go far out of the box, but do start using others' pictures to leap into a whole new twist or whole new design, and these people are artists. Van Gogh and Picasso had visible brush stroke marks on their paintings (which was a no-no in an earlier era) but the overall impression was what made their art great. We now are accepting all sorts of "unusual" things in our quilts, especially those frankly called wall art.
Beauty (or interest) is in the eye of the beholder. "Artist" and "hobbist" are just words. Even great art works are copied (but they are never the same exactly), and probably most of those who copy think of themselves as artist. Whatever works.