AUBURN – In a sunny alcove off the Hilton Garden Inn’s main lobby, Ruth Monsell makes the first cuts into Linda Jett’s silhouette.

A snip here for the chin. A slice there for the brow. She teases out Jett’s nose, her eyelashes, her jaunty pony tail.

“Every feature is equally important,” Monsell said. “You have to look for those minute differences in each person.”

Eyes flitting between Jett and her scissors, it takes Monsell just minutes to coax a profile from the thin, black paper. When she’s done, holding up the little head that looks like Jett in shadow, Jett reaches for it with awe.

“Exquisite,” she said.

It’s the kind of reaction that keeps Monsell – one of the few professional silhouette artists in New England – cutting.

Monsell set up shop at the Hilton Garden Inn on Saturday, during the Daughters of the American Revolution’s annual state convention. She planned to work 12 hours as part of a fund-raiser for the group. Evening hours were dedicated to DAR members. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., she was open to the public.

She saw a steady stream of families and couples happy to pay $20 for a single silhouette.

“It just amazes you,” said Gloria Nadeau of Lewiston while she watched Monsell’s scissors flick away at a portrait for a woman. “That’s talent.”

Nadeau’s home is decorated with silhouettes of family members dating back to the 1800’s, the heyday of silhouettes. She always wanted one of her own.

On Saturday, she sat for a double silhouette with her husband, Maurice.

“It’s awesome, just unbelievable,” she said when Monsell was done. “I can see me in there.”

Monsell began cutting silhouettes in 1979. She was doing traditional portraits in New York, but the competition was stiff. She realized no one was working on silhouettes, a centuries-old art form that resulted in simple portraits, a sideview in shadow. She began practicing on her husband, her kids, her neighbors.

Eyeglasses were challenging. So were curls.

Beards and mustaches turned out to be fun.

“The texture, I think, adds something to silhouettes,” she said.

Over the years, Monsell has worked as an English teacher and in telecommunication sales, cutting silhouettes for profit just a couple of times a year. She left teaching and telecommunications behind in 2000, when she moved to Damariscotta. Her new home gave her studio space. The move gave her the opportunity to try art full-time.

She’s been working ever since, both painting portraits and cutting silhouettes. Her work is so highly regarded that she’s been invited to work weddings, a corporate event in Las Vegas and, recently, on a Caribbean cruse ship. She often does events for historical societies, which like the tradition of the art form.

Monsell believes she is the only professional silhouette artist in Maine. She knows of only eight in the entire country.

“I regularly meet people who say, ‘I’ve been looking for (a silhouette artist) for years,’ ” she said.

Jett, who lives in Lewiston, last sat for a silhouette 25 years ago, when she was 15. She wanted an updated one for her 40th birthday Sunday.

“It’s a birthday present to myself,” she said. “They’re elegant yet whimsical.”

Jett left happy, planning to hang the silhouette on her wall at home.

“That’s why I do this,” Monsell said. “It’s rewarding.”