Sullivan’s charred and ruined studio is a powerful symbol of Collins’s grief and inability to move forward. It is the place where Sullivan engaged in his work and also where he died, making it inextricably tied with Collins’s experience of losing him. Initially, Collins refuses to go there or to engage with any of the landlord’s requests that she remove the charred objects left behind. She expressly forbids her friends from going there and reacts with a feeling of intense betrayal and anger when she learns they have gone to inspect and clean out the studio anyways. 

Collins’s refusal to engage with the studio in any way transforms it into a kind of shrine and symbolizes her efforts to stop time. By leaving the studio untouched, she refuses to face up to the reality that Sullivan is gone. The confrontation that ensues when she learns her friends have entered the studio symbolizes how Collins’s grief has the potential to be destructive and rob her of her remaining relationships. The wreckage of the studio (it is badly burned and no longer functional) provides a symbolic, physical manifestation of Collins’s devastated inner state. 

Because it functions as a symbol of her grief, Collins’s feelings about the studio function as a barometer of her healing. Her rage about her instructions regarding the studio being ignored eventually softens. This emotional transition reflects how she is gradually disengaging from her fixation on the past and becoming more open to the future. Once the friends have visited the studio and retrieved some mementos (including a mug that they give to Sara), Collins is able to begin to heal. She becomes more open to building a relationship with Sara and to collaborating with her on managing Sullivan’s estate. As the studio lessens in importance, it loses its symbolic weight and becomes simply a space, no longer a talisman of love and grief.