Oh my goodness, we've missed art quilts. Michael James was the first I remember knowing about...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michae...uilt_artist%29
I'm forgetting the organization but I used to go to a Seattle area modern quilt exhibition each year. Back in my Y2K days, my tag line ran something more like "it may be made with three layers and stitched together, but if you can't wrap a sick baby in it, it's not a quilt". Which was a comment on both art quilts and people making heirloom projects that you couldn't touch with bare hands and had to protect from basically everything and only aired out and looked at from time to time. I admire textile artists greatly, but for me quilting is ultimately a craft -- that is it results in a useful object and not simply an artistic one.
But the nice thing about the quilting world is that we can accommodate many different types and styles and points of view. I am just jaw dropping floored by what some of you can do with collage or thread painting or all the many different techniques and substances. Some of you are indeed making art and I am inspired by your crafts. For the most part for me, although I am using various artistic decisions ultimately I'm just trying to make a pretty blanket.
Edit/PS: The last brand new sewing machine I bought was the last Sears model with pattern cams before computerized machines. It was also one of the first things I bought when I moved out of the college dorms, so must have been 1981-1982, I know I moved it with me in 1983.