Why was I pissed off?! Value, process, and whether something is 'art'

 Cool exercise today - the original six MA Fine Art Digital students came back to do a guest lecture - it was really interesting to meet them, and to hear about their practice. We did an interesting exercise where we using 'found' objects in the room around us to make art. I was initially bewildered as it's so far from my practice, but then started to look around, and my brain started to work. I made a couple of things:

Of the three, the first was my favourite, assembled from my daughter's (clean) washing. Someone said they liked it, and, rather than being pleased, I felt strangely pissed off! Not pissed off with them, but pissed off with art... I spent a lot of the evening wondering why, and came to the conclusion that I was pissed off because it was too 'easy' to be 'art' :-/ I think it comes back to a few conflicts I am grappling with:

• If something is 'easy' does it have value? It's the (stupid) stereotype of the genius artist walking into the gallery and stubbing their cigerette out against the wall, and suddenly it's 'art'
• If art I make 'easily' is 'good', why do I bother spending so long making art that is 'hard'? Why do my 'easiest' pieces often turn out to be the most successful? Do I get in my own way?
• Someone pointed out that the end 'art' is the culmination of a lot of thinking that happens up to then
• I was angry because my 'piece' had no meaning - it was grabbed from things to hand - but that's actually completely untrue - I thought a lot (relatively speaking) about how it related to grief, how it could show a child's grief in an approachable way etc
• Having more time would allow more meaning to permeate the work - I often start off with a good idea, but as time goes on, it matures and gets better - the act of making the work over an extended time helps me to reflect and ponder and connect

So why was I pissed off? Maybe I was pissed off with myself for making something that proved my beliefs about art to be wrong? For making something that made me into the thing I reject?

Dunno