I believe everything that I intended to be a quilt IS a quilt. If I like it enough to hang it on my wall like art, then it's a piece of art (until I take it down, then it's a quilt again *smiles*
If from the beginning I intended to use fabric & thread as the media to create a work of art, then it IS a work of art.
It doesn't matter how anyone else would define what I've created; only how I would define it for myself.