Earth Door Sky Door

Gemstones Set in Fine Sterling Silver

At Earth Door Sky Door we produce a line of fine sterling silver jewelry set with semi-precious gemstones. We are based in Arlington, MA, USA, and we manufacture in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. We specialize in the use of rainbow moonstone and labradorite, though we also employ a full range of other stones.

Our emphasis is on hand-worked jewelry. Rather than being concerned that each and every piece be an identical replica of the piece before it and after it, it is in the charm and character, in the heart and soul of hand-worked jewelry that we especially take pride. Even in our simplest designs, we hope that the presence of the individual artisan peers through.

India is a place where craftsmen and artisans are still honored, even as the country rushes, along with much of the rest of the world, into a more technological and less personalized future. So even while most of our jewelry is simple and modern in design, it nevertheless reflects a love for craft and for tradition that is rapidly disappearing from so many places.

Because we are a small company, we produce in limited quantities. We are therefore able to maintain a very high level of quality control and can offer a high quality, consistent product, even while we try to give our artisans the freedom to tap into their imaginations.

About the Company Director

Let me introduce myself. My name is Rusty Glicksman, and I established Earth Door Sky Door in the early 1990’s. Before that, as well as during the early years of the company, I was an instructor of English language and literature at various institutions in Canada and the US.

Since the late 1960’s I have traveled widely, especially in South Asia, with India becoming more and more a second home to me. It was as a result of my efforts to incorporate India into my life that I got into the jewelry business. Even though I’d come from such a different background, I found that working with Indian artisans connected me more and more with Indian society and culture.

Buying from Earth Door Sky Door

We are primarily a wholesale company. This website has been set up as an on-line catalog to serve our existing customers, as well as a way to introduce ourselves to new customers. It gives us an opportunity to keep our customers up-dated on product availability and also to display new designs. We have striven to make the site easy to navigate, while also directing customers to related items.

Please feel free to browse the catalog and if you are interested in proceeding further, simple registration procedures can be accessed from the Home Page or the Login Page. We would be very happy to meet new customers and all inquiries are welcome.

About Our Name

In the mid-1970’s I was traveling in Ladakh, a region in the Indian Himalayas that abuts the great Tibetan plateau. Ladakh shares Tibet's ancient Buddhist culture, and as Tibet and its Buddhist institutions were being devastated by the Chinese, Ladakh became increasingly important as a repository of Buddhist learning.

While there, I happened to acquire a small bead that had a circle on one side, a square on the other. Some years later, I learned about Tibetan dZi beads. These dZi beads are much treasured artifacts from Tibet’s distant past, and their origin is shrouded in mystery.

I remembered the little bead that I had gotten in Ladakh, brought it back to India on a subsequent trip, and discovered that it was very special, very rare. In Tibetan, the particular pattern on my bead is called Sa sGo gNam sGo, which translates as the earth door (the square) and the sky door (the circle). As so often acknowledged in ancient wisdom, the bead seemed to speak of the profound relationship between the celestial and the terrestrial, and consequently of the interconnectedness of all things. This is an understanding so easily forgotten in the clatter of modernity, yet so desperately important to the ultimate health and bounty of mother earth.

Whether I had acquired the bead by chance, or through the working of forces I do not fully comprehend, I have always felt it to have been an auspicious moment in my life. So when I set up my business I named it after my dZi bead. My business logo is a view of the bead rolled out --- the earth door and the sky door.