Jim's Gem

Both!! It is my hobby but it is also a form of art, especially when you throw in your own creativity!

batikmystique

Anyone who has ever been to a quilt show (large or small) will undoubtedly argue that it is an art form...I 100% agree. I believe that a hobby can be either a form of art or not. Some people consider collecting baseball cards, comic books, bottle caps, etc to be a hobby...but, they are not forms of art. I believe that any activity labeled a hobby which results in a product attained by creativity falls into the art form category. Quilting is definitely both a hobby and an art form.

CarolinePaj

It is Both!!!

Hugs

Caroline

Sierra

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.

LadyElisabeth

I finally started calling myself a "Fiber Artist"

susanwilley

For me its just a hobby. I'm not good enough yet for it to be considered art. I'm still working on the "quilting" part of it. But its a hobby I just love and I'm proud of what I can do!

Pickles

It's both for I have never bought a pattern and I don't follow anything but my own vision
for what I want it to look like. I look at a pic are someones quilt and I can do it and I might
change it to suit me..

piepatch

I consider quilting both an art and a hobby. All quilts involve art on some level, depending on the amount of talent of the quilter. A lot of canvas painting artists have turned to soft sculpture (quilt making) as an outlet for their talent, but I think all quilters are artists to some extent. I never saw a quilt I didn't like, regardless of how well or how poorly it was made, because it is the art work of the quilter who made it, and each quilt has a history.

JulieR

My answer: who cares? That guy can fly a kite.

justflyingin

Any time you "create", that could be considered art--whether in the kitchen, at the sewing machine, or in the woodshop, or using canvas and paints or pens.

As to whether it is a hobby or not--a person's "profession" means you get paid for it--a "hobby" generally means it's not your source of income. Comparing the two is like asking asking if apples are fruit or red?

Many times a hobby starts out as just dabbling, then he/she gets good at it and then turns into a profession. Then, often that person acquires another hobby so that they can "get away" from the "job" for a while.